Ties
by Havah Kinny
Summary: [Little Miss Sunshine] Dwayne and Olive connect through the drama of Dwayne's relationship, and a few problems Olive has at school. I changed the summary, sorry! Drama to the point that it's comic. DwayneXOC
1. Chapter 1

"RICHARD! OLIVE! DWAYNE! FRANK! DINNER!" Sheryl made the dinner call, and one by one, the family entered the dining area. It was one year after the pageant had occurred, and while a lot of things had been resolved, the family still had occasional disagreements, like was healthy for any normal family. Frank was still living with them, but they had finally got the guest room, which they had been using for storage, all cleaned out, so Dwayne had his room back to himself, which made life easier for everyone.

"Spaghetti, nice." Dwayne spoke, he was serious too, and smiling, which even now, was unusual for him.

"Why are you in such a good mood?" Olive asked, still used to Dwayne's turbulent behavior.

"No reason. How was school?" Dwayne turned the subject back to his little sister.

"Oh, it was good you know, mostly same as always." Olive shrugged. Dwayne couldn't believe how much she had grown up in the last year. But then again, when you're family's that dysfunctional, you learn a few things.

"And how's the boy doing? What was his name? Jeremy?" Sheryl asked, setting the spaghetti on the table and joining everyone else sitting down.

"MOM!" Olive said, horrified.

"Oh, was I not supposed to tell anyone?" Sheryl made an 'oops' face, but didn't look too upset over it, it was, after all, the crush of an 8 year old.

"Wait, there's a boy?" Richard said, suddenly slightly concerned.

"Jesus Richard, she's 8, at most it's puppy love," Sheryl smiled at him, and his expression faded from worry to calm.

"I for one, want to know more," Frank said, spooning the spaghetti on to his plate. Dwayne nodded in agreement with his uncle.

"Well, there's this boy, named Jeremy, and he sits across from me, so I'm always looking at him and stuff, and he's kind of cute, and I like him." Olive turned slightly pink around the ears at talking about this boy.

"How are you handling it?" Richard asked. He had given up the nine steps, but occasionally, his 'have-to-be-a-winner' side came back.

"The usual stuff, chasing him at recess, pretending that I don't like him, you know." Olive smiled.

"I remember those days…vaguely," Dwayne said, as though reminiscing back to before the black hair, before he knew he was colorblind.

"Don't we all," Frank said with a chuckle. "Keep at it Olive, you'll do fine, I'm sure of it." Frank gave his niece a friendly smile.

"Why don't you invite him over?" Sheryl suggested. "You know, now that everyone knows, like for a play date or something."

"Yeah…maybe. I'm afraid the other kids will tease me though, they already tease me enough as it is," she looked as though she was thinking on it.

"WHAT? Who's teasing you? I'll kill them." Dwayne's immediate response to her statement was an outburst, something he still hadn't been able to tame.

"Dwayne, breathe, you're not going to kill anyone," Frank said.

"Just some kids at school, they tease everyone, it's no big deal," Olive pretended to shrug it off, and the family dropped it, but Dwayne sensed there was more to it. He didn't push however, not now at least, that would have to wait for later.

"Good spaghetti Sheryl," Richard said after it had been quiet for a few minutes.

"Thanks…It's not exactly difficult though…" Sheryl trailed off, making fun of her husband's inability to cook.

"Hey mom, can I have $30?" Dwayne asked out of the blue.

"Uh, what for?" Sheryl wanted to know.

"Um, school dance." At Dwayne's words, Richard began to choke on a meatball, and had to be thumped on the back by Frank (a/n I know that doesn't actually help, but it's probably what they would do). Once the hacking and coughing had ended, the focus went back to Dwayne.

"Sorry, did we hear that correctly?" asked Frank.

"Yeah…" Dwayne was starting to turn a little red too.

"Dwayne, you hate school organized activities, hell, you hate activities in general, why would you want to go to a school dance?" asked Richard, just as perplexed as the next person.

"You know what? Never mind, forget I said anything," Dwayne said.

"No, no, I'll get you the money later, can I write a check to your school?"

"Yeah, sure." Dwayne said.

"Seriously, why do you want to go to the dance?" Richard pushed.

"So, mom, do you want to chaperone the 3rd Grade field trip next week?" Olive interjected, sensing her brother needed a way out of his step father's nagging.

"Depends, where are you going and what day?" Sheryl asked. When heads were turned, Dwayne mouthed thank you to his little sister.

"We're going to see some concert thing, I have permission slip in my backpack that explains, want me to go get it?" Olive asked.

"No, that's ok, I'll look at it after dinner honey." The rest of the meal continued in roughly the same style, someone would bring up something, and eventually, the subject would move on to yet another unimportant topic. Dwayne cleared his plate, and snuck away back to his room, claiming to have homework, to avoid having to do the dishes. Olive made the same excuse, and went to her bedroom, where she lay on her floor doing a book worksheet and other homework. After awhile, her math became confusing, and she left her room to seek help.

"Mom, dad?" she said as she walked in to the kitchen, where they were sitting at the table paying their bills.

"Not now honey, we're busy," Sheryl said.

"Oh, ok." Olive walked off, and went to Frank. "Frank, can you help me with my math homework?" she asked.

"Oh, Olive I'm really bad at math…" Frank said. Olive knew that he wasn't up to helping, because it was hard for an adult to be bad at third grade math, but she nodded her head and thanked him anyway. "Why don't you ask Dwayne, he's pretty good at math, he's pretty good at everything." Frank made the suggestion, and Olive walked to his room.

"What?" Dwayne asked when Olive knocked on the door.

"Can I come in?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, sure." She opened the door to see Dwayne sprawled on the floor surrounded by a text book, two pencils, one broken in two, a notebook, and several crumpled sheets of notebook paper.

"What happened in here?" she asked, Dwayne's room was usually very tidy, so she was a little surprised by the mess.

"Physics, anyway, what's up?"

"Math," she said. "I don't understand the difference between multiply and adding." She sat down next to him and showed him her worksheet. Dwayne sat up straight, taking his pencil and spare piece of paper.

"Ok, so you see here, when you have three plus three, you are adding to three's." He wrote out the equation three plus three for her to see. "When you have three times three, then you are just adding three together three times, so it's really three plus three plus three." He wrote out three times three for her, then three plus three plus three for her to look at.

"Oh," she said after looking for a minute. "So if you have five times four you would just add five together four times?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's why they say times instead of plus or minus."

"Oh, that makes sense." She nodded.

"Yup, and as you get older you'll eventually memorize the simple times tables, but you're not there quite yet." Dwayne gave her a small smile.

"Cool! I can't wait." She smiled. "Is it ok if I stay in here until I'm done with the worksheet? Incase I need more help I mean?" she asked, looking for any excuse to spend some time with Dwayne.

"Yeah, sure." He rolled over to face his homework, and she mimicked his action. They studied together in silence. When Olive finished, she just lay there, taking in her time spent with her brother, as it was rare; he liked to be alone.

"I give, I fucking give," Dwayne said at last, slamming his physics book shut and putting his papers away. His sudden actions startled Olive, and it wasn't like her brother to give up, she knew that he was really smart, and he almost never had trouble with school.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's hard, and I can't concentrate, just don't take physics if you can avoid it."

"Ok, I'll try not to." She watched Dwayne as he put his physics things in his backpack, and pulled out his book for English, The Scarlet Letter, and a high lighter. When he opened the book, a small piece of paper fell out, but Dwayne didn't appear to notice as he uncapped his high lighter, prepared to make note of any symbols found in the book, and neglected the stray paper.

"Who's Sophie Johnson?" Olive asked.

"What?" Dwayne looked over at her, a little surprised.

"Sophie Johnson," she said, and she handed him the paper that she had picked up from his book. It was a note, which read **Dwayne, Call me sometime, 555-0166. Sophie Johnson.** She had dotted the "i" in her name with a heart.

"Hey! Don't look at my stuff!" he said defensively, taking the paper from her and stuffing it back inside the book.

"I'm sorry, it just fell out, I didn't mean to…" she sighed. "Are you mad at me?" she asked.

"No, no, I'm not mad, I'm sorry if I seemed mad," he apologized.

"Are you going to call her?" Olive asked.

"I don't know…" Dwayne shrugged, sounding as though he was torn between two options.

"You should." Olive said smiling. "She drew a heart that probably means that she likes you. Do you like her?"

"I dunno, I guess maybe, but I don't really know if I like her or not, and maybe she's just yanking my chain," he said, then explained at the confused expression on Olive's face. "You know, just playing a trick on me, like oh, let's make fun of the kid who didn't talk for nine months, that sort of thing."

"That would be mean, that's something that Carl would do," Olive said.

"Carl?" Dwayne asked a little confused. "Is he one of the people giving you a little trouble at school?" Dwayne asked, his face serious and filled with concern for Olive.

"Yeah…" Olive trailed off, she didn't want to talk about it.

"What's he doing?" Dwayne asked, pushing her a little further.

"He just makes fun of me all of the time, and I really don't like it, but I don't know what to do about it." She shrugged.

"Have you told the teacher?" Dwayne asked.

"Yeah, but she didn't do anything about it really, she moved him for awhile, but then some other kids were having trouble, so she had to move him back. It's not really bad, he doesn't hurt me or anything, just constantly calls me names and stuff."

"Olive, that's not good…you should talk to mom or dad about it…" Dwayne said. He always referred to Richard as dad when talking to Olive, but to one else. Saying go talk to mom and your dad sounded weird to him.

"I don't want to be a tattle tale though," she said.

"Hey, Olive, is this where you've been? We were looking for you!" Richard came in. "It's time for bed."

"Oh, ok." Olive hopped up, taking her homework with her, and left the room. Richard was about to leave, but Dwayne stopped him.

"Richard, I need to talk to you about Olive." He said.

"O…k…what about?" Richard asked, coming back in to the room and closing the door.

"She's getting bullied at school, and she talked to the teacher, who did little to nothing about it."

"Dwayne, getting bullied is a part of growing up." Richard said, looking at his stepson with intent.

"Maybe, but so is stopping the bullying, if it continues, it could have a permanent effect on her, and she may be too young to overcome it all by herself. She's your daughter, it's your job to help her," Dwayne said. He didn't understand Richard, and he was beginning to think that he never would.

"Dwayne, don't tell me how to raise my daughter, ok?" Richard said, opening the door and walking out of the room. Dwayne sighed, frustrated with Richard's lack of caring about his own daughter's safety.

_**A/N Ok, so what did you guys think? So far this is definitely different from my other LMS fics. My goal is to focus on the familial relationship between Dwayne and Olive but to give them both subplots to (hopefully) enhance the characters. I hope I don't get too one sided though, let me know if you think I do in further chapters. At this point I'm not sure how I'm going to split the chapters, but something will work itself out.**_


	2. Chapter 2

Olive picked at her breakfast, waiting for her mom to drive her to school. She wasn't very hungry, and she definitely wasn't interested in the burnt toast that sat in front of her. "Mom! We're running late AGAIN!" Olive called.

"I know, I know," Sheryl said, rushing in to the room and grabbing the car keys. "Come on, let's go." They walked swiftly out to the car, and Olive hopped in the back seat, setting her backpack on the seat next to her. "Have a good day!" Sheryl called as she dropped Olive off at the front of school only a few minutes before the bell rang.

"I will mom!" Olive called. She ran in to the large, red brick school, and walked quickly to her classroom to avoid being marked tardy. She managed to slip in to her seat just before the bell rang.

"You were almost late AGAIN Kalamata." Carl leaned over and spoke in her ear.

"I hate it when you call me that, it's not my name, and I don't like it." She said, trying to fight back the oncoming annoyance at being made fun of for her name.

"Maybe I know that, and maybe that's why I do it." Carl said, in an even more unfriendly manner then before. She ignored him, but he kept prodding at her. "What? Did the hippy wagon break down again?" he chided, referring to the VW bus that she came to school in when her dad drove.

"No, the bus is fine," she said indignantly.

"Then why late? Did that stupid uncle of yours try to kill himself again?" he instigated further, causing her to be upset. It was the same thing she heard almost every day, but it still hurt. She didn't even know how he found out about these things, but he knew Dwayne was colorblind, and he knew that Frank had tried to kill himself, and he knew that Richard had failed at his book deal, and he knew that Sheryl had divorced her first husband. Olive chose again not to respond. Carl poked her, and she winced, but still said nothing. Carl sat back in his seat, and pretended to be doing his work for part of class, but Olive knew that it wouldn't be long until he spoke up yet again.

"Olive, can you tell me who signed the declaration of independence?" the teacher asked.

"Um, it wasn't just one person I thought," Olive was suddenly confused, she was remembering Dwayne's US history report on ALL of the people who signed the declaration.

"That is correct, class, there were 55 people who signed the declaration of independence, I have no idea how Olive knew that, but more power to her." Olive smiled a little bit, but tried to suppress it because Carl hated it when she got right answers, especially when he knew the answer himself.

"Hey, did your geekoid brother tell you that?" Carl said.

"Sort of, and geekoids not a real word I don't think."

"Of course he didn't tell you, he doesn't talk. HA! You have a geekoid brother who doesn't talk, even though he can!" Carl pushed her further.

"Ok, he talks, he just took a break for awhile, how do you even know these things about my brother?" Olive was confused.

"Because my brother knows him, and when his friends are over, sometimes I hear them talking about him, they talk about all of the low life's in their grade." Carl explained, a smirk on his face the whole time.

"Oh," Olive was a little upset by this. "So they say mean things about my brother?" she asked, feeling sad for Dwayne.

"Basically, yeah, him and a few other people, and they talk about the hot girls, I listen to most of their conversations, it's interesting."

"Oh, well that actually explains a lot." Olive muttered to herself, and turned her attention back to the teacher, avoiding the comments and stares of Carl, who tried for a couple more minutes to turn her attention back to him by making fun of her family, but he failed, and she remained focused on the front of the classroom, where the teacher continued to talk about the declaration of independence, and the significance that it would come to have in our society. Olive found it all to be sort of interesting, but she could think of things that she'd rather be doing. The bell rang for lunch.

"Olive, are you alright?" her friend Nan asked her while they were sitting at the lunch table, Olive wasn't eating her lunch.

"Yeah, I'm fine, it's just, do you guys think my brother is weird?" she asked.

"Um…" Nan said, thinking. Sarah tried not to giggle. "He's a little strange, yes, nothing like my brother." Nan had a 13 year old brother who was on every sports team he could manage, and was a huge hit with the ladies.

"Sarah, what's so funny?" Olive asked, ignoring Nan's comment, almost no one was like Nan's brother.

"Oh, nothing," Sarah said, straightening up, and trying not to smile.

"No, seriously, what is it?" she asked.

"Oh, it's just that my sister had her friend over yesterday, and her friend's in Dwayne's grade, and her friend thinks he's cute, and they were talking about whether she should ask him out or not, but I didn't get to listen to the conversation anymore because they caught me listening in." Sarah explained the story to Olive and Nan, and they listened intently.

"Really?" Olive asked at last, not sure of what to say to that. She had never heard of anyone liking her brother, and from what he had said last night, it didn't seem to her as though he had either, seeing as he thought Sophie Johnson was, as he had put it, yanking his chain. "What's her friends name?"

"Sophie I think, or Sophia," Sarah answered her. "Why?"

"Oh, no reason, just wondering," Olive shrugged.

"Wait, you're not going to tell him are you? I don't really want my sister and her friend to get mad at me!" Sarah sounded a little worried, and Nan made a snorting sound.

"Uh, no, don't worry, they won't get mad at you." Olive turned to her lunch and finally started eating only moments before the bell rang. She packed up the remainder of her food, she would have to eat after school.

The day dragged on, Carl continued to poke fun at Olive, and she continued to pretend that she was ignoring him, though it really did hurt her. After school, she caught the regular school bus home as she usually did. Someone always picked her up at the bus stop, always Frank or Dwayne, today it was Dwayne, which was the rarer of the two. "Hi." She said, smiling as she got off of the bus and walked towards her brother.

"Hey, how was school?" They turned and started walking towards the house.

"It was fine. Hey, did you ever call Sophie Johnson?" Olive asked, trying to be casual about it.

"No, why?" Dwayne looked down at her, not sure why she would ask that question, she didn't usually read this much in to his personal life…not that he had much of a personal life in the past, just one girlfriend before everything started to go down hill.

"Ok, well she's not yanking your chain, you should call her." Olive said. Dwayne smiled, he was proud that she was using the phrase that he had taught her.

"How would you know that?" he asked her.

"Let's just say I promised not to tell, but trust me on this one, just call her."

"Uh, ok, maybe…" Dwayne looked down at his sister, confused. "I dunno…it just might not seem like the right thing to do." Dwayne fumbled with the thought in his head a little bit.

"Well what about the dance? It can't actually cost 30 dollars for one ticket." Olive looked at him intently. She was sort of going as she went, but to her 30 dollars was a lot of money, and more then one dance ticket was worth.

"Ok, ok, I was thinking about asking her, but I dunno…it seems a little strange, I really don't know anything about her…"

"Wouldn't that help you get to know her better?" Olive asked, raising a curious eyebrow at him.

"Yeah, probably, but I'm not really sure. Then again, I really won't know unless I give it a shot, so…you never know I suppose."

"You should call her." Olive smiled.

"So you've said." They reached the house, and Olive dumped her things in her room, then went in to Dwayne's room.

"Here." She handed him the home's cordless telephone and smiled at him as he took the phone from her.

"You know what? Fine." He took out the piece of paper from his book that had the number, and dialed. Before he pressed talk, he looked at Olive. "Uh…would you mind, you know, leaving?" he asked. She smiled, and walked outside, shutting the door behind her, but she went to the kitchen and grabbed quietly took the other phone off the hook, listening in.

"Hello?" someone on the other line answered, it was a female's voice.

"Uh, hi, is Sophie there?" Dwayne asked.

"Duh, this is my cell phone, who else would it be?" the girl was joking around, but it was enough to send Dwayne in to slight nervousness. "Who's this?" she asked.

"Oh, well, it's Dwayne, you know, from you're English class…" he trailed off, not sure of what else to say in response to her question.

"Oh right, of course. What's up?" Her amiable tone relaxed him a little bit, and Olive smiled from her listening post.

"Nothing much, I just, well, I got your note and decided to call I guess?" he phrased it like a question, and mentally kicked himself for doing so. "Well actually, I was also wondering if you wanted to go to the dance on Saturday."

"Really? Do you actually go to dances?" she asked, sounding a little surprised.

"Well, I haven't before, but I'd like to, that is if you want to. Or we could do something else, or if you don't want to do something, we obviously don't have to," _ok, now I'm just rambling, _he thought to himself.

"No, Dwayne, I would love to go to the dance with you." Olive tried very hard not to squeal when she heard Sophie accept Dwayne's invitation.

"Ok, um, do you know what time it starts?" he asked, slightly embarrassed that he hadn't bothered to get any details about the dance before asking.

"7:30 I think." She sounded pretty sure of herself, so Dwayne trusted the answer.

"Ok, so I'll pick you up at what, 7:15? Where do you live?"

"Sounds good." She gave him an address that was conveniently located between his house and the school. "You have a car?" she asked, she sounded a little surprised yet again.

"Sort of, technically, it's the families car, but a couple of things happened, and we got yet another car, so Richard has one, and my mom has one, and I share this one with Frank, but he doesn't drive much."

"That's really cool. Who're Richard and Frank?"

"Oh, Richard's my step dad, and Frank is my uncle on my mom's side," Dwayne explained, realizing that she really did know nothing about him.

"You're parents are split? I didn't know that. And you're uncle lives with you? Wow, that's a houseful."

"Yeah, well, I have a half sister too, and my grandpa used to live here too, well, technically it was my step grandpa, but same basic idea. He died last year though. It was REALLY crowded then." He left out the bit about having to room share with his uncle for a bit.

"Wow, sounds like it. So I'll see you at 7:15 Saturday?" she asked.

"Yeah, just warning you, my car is not the coolest car," he said, thinking about the incredibly out dated yellow bus.

"Really? What kind?" she asked, intrigued.

"Well, it's a really old VW bus, bright yellow, it has a lot of problems, but I actually like it a lot for some reason." For some reason, he felt that he needed to stand up for the car.

"Wow, that is definitely not what you usually see with teenagers," Dwayne could hear a smile in her voice, "but I'm not complaining, I like yellow." Olive let out a small sigh of relief when she heard this.

"No, it's not, hey Sophie, hold on a sec, Olive, you know it's really not polite to listen in on other people's phone conversations." Dwayne heard the line click as he spoke, he had heard her sigh and called her out.

"What?" Sophie asked, a little confused.

"Oh, sorry about that, my sister was listening in, I heard her make some noise, she's gone now." To Dwayne's relief, Sophie let out a small giggle.

"That happens to all of my friends, lucky me, I'm an only child. So wait, you're sister's name is Olive?" she asked. "That is a really cool name."

"Well, we all like it around here. She's a really good kid, just a little misguided in some respects, but we have her father to thank for that."

"Well, I see you have a little resentment for the stepfather," Sophie joked.

"He's kind of a jack ass, he's getting better though, the bus was actually his, so it's actually thanks to him that I have a car, but still…he has some issues. My whole family has some issues." Dwayne chuckled a little, making light of the situation.

"All families have problems."

"Let me rephrase, all of the people in my family have problems, pretty odd ones."

"Really? Want to talk about it?" Sophie was surprisingly easy to talk to.

"Uh, well my mom smokes, but she's working on quitting, and she's getting a lot better about it, Richard is a little obsessed with winning, he was way obsessed though, so I suppose that' son the mend as well, but you know, he doesn't really know how to raise Olive, and I'm trying to help him figure it out, but with the dislike between us, it's hard. Frank tried to kill himself, and he's still sort of depressed sometimes, which is actually why he's living with us, but he has a job now, so that's helping with a lot of things. Olive wanted to be a beauty queen for a little while, but we got her out of that sense, now she's having a little trouble with school bullies, but I'm working on that." Dwayne stopped talking suddenly, wondering why the hell she would care. "I'm sorry…you probably don't care."

"No, no, continue, really, it's fine, you have to get it out some time right? We all need to talk to somebody." The nice way that she was speaking to him made Dwayne feel more accepted than he had in almost two years.

"Uh, ok, well before my grandpa died, and this is actually probably why he died but he was a heroine junkie sex addict, an absolutely great influence on me personally," Dwayne joked a little. "I have my share of problems too though…you know about the silence thing, maybe, but that was nine months, and I definitely have been on the outs with almost everybody the last two years, just now starting to really talk to my family again."

"Yeah, I remember that, what was all of that about?"

"Well, I kind of took the vow until I could get in to the air force academy, but that's not going to happen anymore, so I started talking again."

"Why is it not going to happen?"

"Um, I'm color blind actually."

"Wait, really? So you don't actually know what color things are?" This was a surprise to her, he always seemed aware of everything.

"No, it's not like that, things aren't black and white, I just can't tell the difference between green and red, there's different sorts of color blind, it makes it hard to catch some times, I didn't know about it until last year."

"Wow, I'm really sorry about that."

"Well, you win some, and you lose some." Dwayne shrugged, but then realized how stupid that was, as she couldn't see it.

"True. Oh shit, I have to go, my mom's home, I'm supposed to be doing homework."

"Yeah, me too actually, well not my mom, but the homework thing."

"Yeah…"

"Anyway, bye. I'll see you Saturday." Sophie said goodbye as well, and they hung up. Dwayne took the phone back out to the family room, where he put it up on receiver. He walked back to his room, smiling a little.

_**A/N Congratulations! You made it through chapter two! YAY! Sorry the update was so slow, I'm writing a research paper, which I'm sad to say is beating me down a bit. I hope that I have the next update a little faster, but you know, school first, then fanfiction, then social life. I hope this story doesn't suck too much, cause I have the feeling that it's going quickly in to 'deargodisuck' land. **_


	3. Chapter 3

"Mom, no, I can take care of it myself, really." Dwayne looked Sheryl intently in the eye, insisting that he would be able to come up with a proper wardrobe for that night's winter formal dance without her help.

"I just feel like I could really give you a hand, I mean, you don't even own a suit…" she said, worrying slightly. "I mean, you are taking a girl."

"Geez, its fine, Frank's lending me a suit, and I promise I'll be polite, I will look fine, I promise, or at least I'll try." Dwayne was feeling uncomfortable. "Besides, you've been a big help already, you went out and bought that flower bracelet thingy for her this morning, which was nice."

"Oh alright, I'll let you deal with this on your own, god, I never thought that I'd see this day. Oh, and that flower bracelet thing, it's called a corsage." Sheryl turned and left Dwayne's room. He still had three hours before he had to pick Sophie up, so he decided to relax with a book not assigned by school for a bit, as he was growing to hate _The Scarlet Letter _more and more as he read on. With about an hour left, he took a shower, and brushed out his hair.

"Ok, I think black, there's no way you would look good with the navy blue." Frank came in to Dwayne's room, and showed him the suit. It was simple, not too formal, Dwayne thanked his uncle for that, and put the suit on. He felt awkward in it, and the tie made him feel even more out of place, but he thought that he could handle it, at least for now.

"Thanks." Dwayne gave his uncle an appreciative smile. They weren't exactly the same size, Dwayne was a bit thinner, and slightly taller, but the suit looked fine.

"Olive helped me pull it all together you know." Frank smiled. "And on that note, she has more thing that she would like to add, I swear, she picked it out herself."

"Ok," Dwayne gave a slightly nervous smile.

"Olive, come on in," Frank said. The little girl opened the door, and walked in with a smile, and something hidden behind her back.

"Uh oh, Olive, what have you got?" Dwayne asked, chuckling slightly at the semi mischievous look on his half sister's face.

"Here, I think that you should wear this." From behind her back, Olive showed Dwayne a black fedora. Frank gave a snort of laughter as Dwayne took the hat and put it on his head, tilted at an angle, the way it should be worn.

"It looks stupid," he said, without even looking at it. "I know it does."

"No, actually, I thought it would, to be honest, I didn't really think that you had the physical structure and appearance to pull off a fedora, but it looks surprisingly good on you," Frank said, taken aback.

"Really?" Dwayne asked in a self conscious manner.

"Well look for yourself, but I'm going to say yes."

"Nah, I'll take your word for it." Olive smiled up at her brother, she was glad that he was wearing the hat. "I should actually get going." Dwayne walked out to the front room, followed by Frank and Olive. Sheryl came up to him.

"Here, don't forget the corsage." Sheryl handed him the box containing the white roses and orchids.

"Thanks, I'll be back by midnight, dance ends at eleven." Dwayne smiled, he was hoping for a walk or something after the dance…if things went well.

"Alright, have a good time." Sheryl wished her son well, and he left the house.

"I'M COMING!" a voice called as Dwayne knocked on the door of the house at the address that Sophie had given him. (**_Try saying that 5 times really fast.) _**The door opened a moment later, and a woman stood looking at him, he took it to be Sophie's mother. "Dwayne?" she asked. He nodded. "Come on in, Soph will be down in a second." She opened the door wider, and Dwayne walked in.

"Thanks." He could tell that she was eyeing him suspiciously, and he didn't know if it was the black hair or the hat.

"Hi," Sophie came down the stairs. She looked pretty in her green just below the knee length dress.

"Hey, you look nice." Dwayne smiled at her. "Oh, here, this is for you." He handed her the corsage."

"Oh, thank you Dwayne, it's beautiful!" She smiled and put it on. "Oh, and I like your hate." She gave him a small wink.

"Oh, honey, have a good time, and just call if you're going to be past midnight, ok?" Her mom said. "Ok, just let me take one picture before you go?" she pulled out a camera, and Sophie moved closer to Dwayne, smiling so that her mom could get what she wanted. Her mom took a few shots, and the pair left the house.

"Wow, I like the car!" Sophie exclaimed when Dwayne showed her the bus.

"Thanks." They both got in to the car. "So one question, the hat, do you actually like it? Cause I decided to wear it because my sister picked it out, and I dunno, it seemed a little, well, not me." He took the hat off, and played with the band a bit.

"Well, do you like it?" she asked him.

"Kind of yeah, I think it's definitely amusing." He nodded.

"Here," she put the hat back on his head. "If you like it, you should wear it. Oh, and by the way? I think it's hot." Dwayne smiled and started up the car.

"Thank you." They drove the dance, talking about random, unimportant things, such as the weather. "Well, uh, here we are." Dwayne said. The very thought of the dance made him feel a little bit uneasy.

"Do you actually want to go?" Sophie asked. She sensed Dwayne's tension. "You seem a little uncomfortable."

"Well, I've never been to a school activity…and it makes me a little nervous, you know, I don't really fit in, and I kind of like it that way, you know? I never do this kind of thing."

"What made you decide to come to this one?" she asked.

"Honestly? When you asked me to call, I thought that it might be worth it to ask you out, and the dance would be best, because that way, if you wanted it to be, it could just be a friend thing, and there wouldn't be any awkward moments."

"Let's not go then."

"What?" Dwayne was a little confused.

"Let's do something else, you said you wanted to ask me out, and I'm saying yes, we don't have to go to the dance." She smiled.

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

"Let's get something to eat maybe?"

"Dressed like this?" he asked, skeptically raising an eyebrow.

"Here, take off the jacket, and tie, I'll let my hair down, and we'll go somewhere normal, and people will give us strange looks, it will be fun! Don't tell me you're afraid of a few strange looks." She pulled the pins from her hair, letting the red locks cascade down. He shed his jacket and tie willingly, leaving him in a white shirt and slacks, still wearing the off kilter hat. They both re-buckled their seatbelts, and Dwayne drove them around until they found a '50s style diner. They went inside, both smiling, and got a table. They were definitely getting odd looks, and both of them seemed to be loving it.

"So, why the note?" Dwayne asked after they had gotten their food.

"What do you mean?"

"Why did you give me that note?" he asked again.

"Cause I liked you, I wanted to get to know you better, I wanted to maybe go out with you." Dwayne had been honest with her, she might as well return the favor.

"Why me?" he asked, biting in to his cheeseburger.

"I have no idea. There's just something about you, even when you were quiet, I mean, you're cute. You're black hair made you stand out, and I liked that. Your turn now, what made you decide to call?"

"To tell you the truth, it was Olive, she found the note that you sent, it was in my copy of _The Scarlet Letter,_ and she thought that it would be good for me to call you, but I was afraid that you were just, you know, pulling a prank or something. She convinced me that you weren't, and I'm glad she did." He smiled.

"Dwayne, I would never have done that, I'm not that kind of person." She giggled a little.

"Yeah, well usually when people are talking to me, they are making fun of me, so you know, I'm sorry for not realizing that you were different."

"Its fine, you know now." They sat, just talking and enjoying each others company for the rest of the meal, then, neither one ready to go home yet, they decided to go for a walk, and they continued their chat in a park. Sophie kicked off her shoes, as they were high heeled and difficult to walk in. "If everybody makes fun of you so much, why don't you do something about it?" she asked.

"Like what?" he asked. "Those guys aren't worth getting in trouble over, and I figure if I Just ignore them, I only have to deal with it for the rest of this year and next year, I mean, that's only a year a couple months, I think that I'll be able to handle it." Dwayne shrugged. It had never occurred to him to try and do something about it.

"So you're just going to let them walk all over you?" she asked.

"No, they don't walk all over me, they try. If I reacted, they'd be getting what they wanted, and _then _they would be walking all over me."

"Oh, well I guess that makes sense, but I just have to say that you have an incredible level of tolerance to not blow up in their face about, if I were you, boy, I don't even know what I would have done by now." She let out a sigh.

"Then I suppose it's a good thing that you're not me, isn't it?" he smiled at her, and she smiled back. Both were content just to be in the presence of the other, and Dwayne was comfortable with the silence, he was always comfortable with silence, and his relaxation calmed Sophie down.

"Well, I guess I should go," Sophie and Dwayne sat in Dwayne's car outside of her house, parked across the street.

"Yeah, probably, I'll walk you up." Dwayne shut off the ignition, and got out of the bus, jogging around to open the door for Sophie.

"What a gentleman!" she joked, taking the hat off his head and placing it on her own. "I guess chivalry is not yet dead."

"Not dead, just dying. I'm not usually like this, so don't get too used to his," he joked as they walked up to her front porch.

"Well, goodnight," she said, giving him back his hat.

"Yeah, night, thanks for coming, I had a good time."

"Me too. Will I see you at school Monday?" she asked.

"Maybe, will your friends mind if I steal you for a bit?"

"I don't know, but I don't care if they do. I let them see their boyfriends, I think they can handle returning the favor."

"So, uh, are we going out?" Dwayne was confused, the definition had always seemed hazy to him.

"Well, only if you want…" Sophie trailed off, fearing that she had said something to make him uncomfortable.

"Sounds good to me," he said, giving her a pleasant smile.

"Alright, well I really have to go now, I'll see you Monday." She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Night." He waited as she unlocked the door, and disappeared in to the house, then he got in his bus, and drove home.

"Hey, how was it?" Sheryl asked when Dwayne got home.

"It was good." Dwayne didn't feel like talking about it with his mother, she was one of the last people that he felt comfortable discussing this with.

"Olive wanted so badly to see you come home, but she fell asleep waiting." Dwayne looked at the clock in the kitchen, and noted that it was a quarter passed midnight, he silently thanked his mother for not being angry with him for being a bit late.

"That's probably a good thing, it's late." Dwayne staged a yawn, anxious to get away from his mother, and out of the nicer clothes. "I should probably go to bed, I'm tired." He yawned again, this time for real.

"Alright, goodnight." Sheryl gave Dwayne a small kiss on the side of the head. He squirmed a little, but allowed her that mother display of affection.


	4. Chapter 4

Dwayne awoke the next morning when he felt something heavy on his stomach. He sat up, and saw Olive roll of him and on to the foot of his bed. "What the he-" Dwayne stopped him self from sweating. "What are you doing?" he asked her.

"How was last night? Did you have a good time?" Olive was alive with energy, Dwayne missed the days when he had that sort of enthusiasm for such trivial things.

"It was fine, I had a good time, Sophie had a good time, I think. What time is it anyway?" Dwayne asked groggily, still in a dazed state.

"It's ten, mom said I could wake you up because she was worried about you."

"What? It's ten? In the morning? Jesus Christ!" Dwayne was taken aback, he never slept past eight, and even then he usually rose sometime before seven, usually making him the first person awake in the house.

"Yeah, you slept in, mom thought you'd died." Dwayne could tell from Olive's tone that she was joking. "Are you sick?" she asked.

"No, actually I feel great."

"Then get up! Get dressed! It's Saturday! We don't have to go to school, we can do something more fun!" Olive's bouncy attitude made Dwayne feel even better then he already did. She was annoying as anything at times, but he couldn't deny that she could always put him in a better mood.

"Alright, alright, I'm working on it," Dwayne slowly got out of bed and walked over to his dresser. As if on cue, Olive left the boy to change from his green T-shirt and blue plaid boxers to a grey t-shirt that had the word 'What?' written across the front in big black letters, and a pair of navy blue pants. He put on his belt, tucking the metal tip in the back of the belt in his signature style. Frank had always wondered why it didn't annoy him to sit on it, but Dwayne was just used to it. He put on his old red vans, which were so worn that there was now a hole the size of a silver dollar on the side of the left shoe.

"Well look who finally decided to join us," Frank joked as Dwayne entered the kitchen, still yawning.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, save it for someone who cares," Dwayne responded to Frank's teasing.

"Alright, hey Sheryl, you care, right? Look who finally woke up!" Frank threw Dwayne a 'ha ha you lose' grin as he turned to Sheryl.

"I know, jeez Dwayne, are you ok?" Sheryl gave him the glass of orange juice that she had just poured, which he drained in one gulp before answering her.

"I'm fine, I was just tired I guess." He shrugged and pulled a box of freezer waffles from the freezer. He chose two waffles, grabbed an apple from the fruit basket, and sat down without a plate, to eat the waffles frozen.

"You know, those taste better toasted," Olive said, putting her waffles in the toaster and pressing down the lever.

"I like them this way," Dwayne shrugged and bit in to the freezing cold waffle.

"Whatever floats your boat," Sheryl said, rolling her eyes at Frank. She knew Dwayne was different, and she let him be that way, it was better to have him responsive then non responsive after all. Olive and Dwayne both ate their breakfasts quickly. Richard had to work every other Saturday, so he was already out of the house. "I have to run some errands downtown, does anyone want to come?"

"Oh, where?" Olive asked, considering the idea.

"I need to get some food, and I need to get a black shirt for work, the one I have has a hole in it that can't really be fixed, and I need to grab a couple of other household items, I was going to get lunch down there too."

"I'll come," Olive said smiling, she loved eating lunch downtown, even though it usually meant cheap Chinese food.

"Frank? Dwayne?" Sheryl turned to them.

"I don't think so," Dwayne said, which meant no, but he wanted to put it a little nicer.

"Oh come on!" Olive said. "It will be fun! Are you sure you don't want to come? I would like it if you came…"

"I dunno…" Dwayne disliked the outings, they were boring, and he hated shopping.

"Please?" Olive begged looking at him with pleading eyes.

"Oh fine," Dwayne caved. He didn't have much better to do, and if Olive wanted him to go so badly, it might be worth it.

"You know Dwayne, you could use a few new clothes…" Sheryl said.

"Mom, the clothes that I have are fine! They all still fit, almost none of them have holes, and I like them." Dwayne had his mother's insistence that he needed new clothes.

"Alright, alright," she dropped it, it wasn't worth fighting over.

"I think I'll pass," Frank said. They cleared up the kitchen, and then Olive, Sheryl and Dwayne got in to Sheryl's car, Olive sat in the passenger seat and Dwayne in the back, she liked sitting up front, so he figured he might as well let her.

"Ok, so first item on the agenda, grocery shopping." Sheryl pulled the car in to a large food mart, and they all got out. They continued running the errands, Sheryl getting what she needed, and Dwayne walking around with Olive while explored the various stores.

"Mom, I'm hungry," Olive said.

"Yeah, me too, we can get lunch in just a sec," Sheryl said as they tossed the new shirt box in to the trunk of the car.

"Can I drive for a bit?" Dwayne asked, he was tired of riding around town.

"Uh, sure." Sheryl tossed him the keys and directed him towards the restaurant.

"So, I want to hear about your date last night," Olive said after they had ordered and received their various plates of fried rice, orange chicken, and beef broccoli. Dwayne pretended that he didn't hear her.

"Come on Dwayne, you can't tell us absolutely nothing about it, what's the deal? Are you going to see her again, or was it bust?" Sheryl asked.

"Um, yeah, I think I'll probably see her again, I mean, she was really nice, and we both had a good time, the dance wasn't worth it, so we left, but we got something to eat and took a walk and talked, and that was really it." Dwayne shrugged. It felt to weird to him to think that he had a girlfriend, and he trust the words enough yet to say them out loud, it had been a long time since he had a girlfriend, and even then he wasn't sure it counted. They had never gone out, just sat together at lunch and shared an occasional kiss after school. Some days he had walked her home, but she dropped him due to his lack of enthusiasm towards activity, and he hadn't minded.

"Wow, Dwayne, that's really cool. You know, it's good to see you back in to a social ring, we were getting worried that would carry out high school without any friends." Sheryl smiled as she ate and talked.

"Well, it's just one person, and who knows how long it's going to last, but yeah." Dwayne nodded, wanting to change the subject, but not sure of what to say.

"Is she pretty?" Olive asked.

"Yeah, you could say that, I think so."

"What does she look like?" Olive wasn't making it easy for Dwayne to move topics.

"Well, she has pretty long red hair, and she's about 4 or 5 inches shorter then I am?" Dwayne wasn't good at describing people, but he tried his best.

"I'd like to meet her some time," Sheryl said.

"Yeah, me too," Olive said excitedly.

"Geez, I just met her, I don't think that I'm ready for you to meet her yet, I'd like to get to know her a little better first, if you know what I mean." Dwayne was annoyed that his family was reacting so strongly to his meeting one person.

"Alright, alright," Sheryl backed off a little, again, not wanting to fight with her son. Olive stayed silent, but caught Dwayne's eye and smiled, he gave her a wink in return, and she took that to mean that they would be having a conversation later.

They finished up their lunch, then their errands, and returned back to the house. Sheryl took all of her purchases inside, aided by Dwayne. "Frank!" Dwayne called. "Can I take the bus?" Dwayne needed to make sure that Frank didn't need car before he took it.

"Yeah!" Frank called back from his room.

"Olive, do you want to go to the park?" Dwayne asked. Olive answered yes, and looked up to Sheryl, who nodded her approval. Olive and Dwayne got in to the car, and Dwayne drove them to the park, where they sat on the see saw, neither one going up or down. This had been something that they had done ever since Olive was just learning to walk, in a way, it was their place.

"So, are you going to tell me more about Sophie?" Olive asked, looking at Dwayne with a mischievous smile on her face.

"Well, I guess…" Dwayne made his voice sound as though he thought he would be doing her a big favor by telling her anything. "I didn't want to say anything in front of mom, you now, it's my personal life and stuff, I don't want her to get mixed up in all of that."

"Alright, just get on with it!" Olive was impatient to know all of the details.

"Ok, ok," Dwayne smiled. "We got to the dance, but we didn't go in, just like I said, we got food and went for a walk, and then I took her home, and you know, walked her up to the door, and we decided that it would be good to see each other again." Dwayne gave her the condensed version.

"So is she your girlfriend?"

"Yeah, she is, just don't tell mom, ok? I'll tell her, and everybody else, when I think that the time is right."

"I won't, Olive promised. Dwayne loved the way that he connected with his sister, and the way that he could trust her when he really needed to. He would never tell anyone that, but the times he spent with her one on one were the best times that he had, both during his silence, and now. She was the only person that he felt comfortable with entirely, and he was worried that with Sophie, he wouldn't have enough time to give to Olive.

"Thanks," he said, giving her a smile. "So how are things with you? Still getting bullied?" It was Olive's turn to pour her heart out.

"Uh, yeah, but it's not bothering me quite as much, I mean, I hate, I really, really hate it, but it's only bad while it's happening, and dad's right, it happens to everybody, I just need to ignore it, it will get better."

"I don't think you believe that," Dwayne said seriously. "Richard is being an asshole, it's something that can be helped, you just have to tell your dad that you need him to help you, and hopefully, he won't be so ignorant about it." Hearing Olive lie to herself because of something that Richard said made him even angrier at his step father.

"No, I don't want him to get mad at me, it will be ok." Olive shook her head, she didn't want to talk to her father about this, she didn't trust him to do anything about it, and she didn't want him to think that she was weak.

"You don't know if he'll get mad, you won't know unless you try," Dwayne pushed. However, he had a feeling that Olive was right, and that he would get angry at her, but he wanted her to have the courage to at least ask.

"Alright, fine, I'll give it a try." Olive gave in, and kicked off from the ground, sending the unsuspecting Dwayne down to the ground, where he rolled off of the see saw. She laughed, and dismounted her self, walked over to him. "You know, you have bark chips in your hair," she said, giggling as he stood up and brushed himself off.

"Oh do I?" he asked smiling. "And who's fault would that be?" he picked her up and started to tickle her. She squirmed, and eventually got away, running off with Dwayne chasing after her, both of them happy, and both of them wishing they felt this way all of the time.

_**A/N I know, it's kind of lame, and kind of unrealistic or cliché, but I say they had a year to let time pass, it COULD be this way, and Olive is just wise beyond her years, live with it. If you've gotten this far, I admire you for putting up with it. Much love,**_

_**Havah.**_


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next two weeks, Olive had asked her father, and been denied help in over coming her bully problem, and she had told Dwayne this. In anger, Dwayne had taken the issue to his mother, but to his surprise, she had sided fully with Richard. He had told Olive that he didn't know of anything that he could do, but he said that he would try. While Olive's life had been going down hill, Dwayne's had been going in the opposite direction. His relationship with Sophie had been going well. The first week, they had barely seen each other at school, just quick hellos in the hallway, but he walked her home every day after school, and some nights she called him, or he called her. On Friday, they had gone out, roughly the same as last time, just talked, learned about each other, ate dinner, and on Saturday night, they had gone to the movies. That time, when he walked her home and they were standing on her doorstep, he had kissed her. Monday, he had met her friends. Most of them gave him looks of disdain, they hated him already, and it didn't matter if Sophie liked him or not, he would always be the silent freak. A couple of them gave him small smiles or a simple hey, and Sophie's best friend, Arielle, had given him a warm, accepting smile. All of that week, he had sat with them at lunch. Now it was Friday.

"Dwayne! Connie's coming at 5; you're not leaving before that, are you?" Sheryl called. Frank had a meeting with his therapist, and then he was going out with a few of his friends. Richard and Sheryl had to go to a friend's dinner party, and wouldn't be back until late. Dwayne was taking Sophie out to the movies. With everyone else going out, and no one able to take Olive with them, Sheryl had called the Hoover's babysitter, Connie. Connie was about Dwayne's age, but went to a different school, but when he hadn't been speaking, she had been there when he was a lot. Richard and Sheryl hadn't wanted to leave Olive alone with someone who wasn't speaking, so they would have Connie come.

"No mom, I'm leaving at 5:45," Dwayne called back.

"Ok, just be home by 11:30, ok? I told Connie someone would be home by then, and it's not going to be us, and I doubt it's going to be Frank."

"Alright, I will be." It was 4:30, and Dwayne was sitting on the couch next to Olive watching Tom and Jerry on TV. He knew that it was a little under age, but Olive loved it, and he found it amusing enough. She laughed as Jerry watched Tom blow up for the umpteenth time. Dwayne smiled and looked over at her, she seemed pretty happy with the situation, she didn't mind when everyone went out. By 5, Richard, Sheryl, and Frank had all left the house, and when Connie got there, Dwayne excused himself from the front room, and went to shower before picking up Sophie.

"Dwayne," Sophie said, receiving no response. "Dwayne?" she asked, this time raising her voice slightly. He still gave her no response. She looked at him, he looked to be completely zoned out. Following his gaze, she saw noticed that he was staring a tall, amazingly built, blonde girl that was ahead of them in line for the movie. Sophie tapped him on the shoulder and raised her voice even more. "Dwayne!" he turned quickly as though he had forgotten that she was there, _which he probably had, _she reminded herself.

"What?" he asked.

"You know what?" Sophie said, full of hurt and a little anger. "Forget it." She turned and left the queue. Dwayne followed, jogging to catch up to her.

"Wait, Sophie, what's wrong?" he caught her arm, pulling her to a stop.

"I think you know, and if you don't, you should. God, you guys are all the same, settling for what you can get, but constantly craving better," she allowed a tear to roll down her cheek. Sophie knew that she was over reacting, but she didn't care.

Oh come on, I was just looking! It's not like I was going to ditch you for her! I would never do that!" Dwayne was slightly annoyed.

"Dwayne, looking is just as bad. If you're not satisfied with me, them there's clearly a problem." Sophie folded her arms across her chest.

"No, Soph, you're beautiful, you're gorgeous! It's just, I'm a guy; I can't help looking at other girls! I can't!"

"Oh, now that's a great answer," Sophie retorted.

"God, if you can't handle something stupid like this then maybe you're right, maybe there is a problem."

"Well, do you want to do anything about it?" Sophie asked, the tears coming harder and faster now.

"You know what? I don't know anymore," Dwayne shot back. By now, the yelling couple had caught the attention of several movie goers, who had decided that the live action drama was better then anything the silver screen would show them.

"What are you saying Dwayne, are you saying that you don't want to be with me anymore? Is that it?" Sophie glared at Dwayne.

"I don't know, maybe not, I just don't know."

"Well, you know what? I'm losing interest myself, and I don't have time to wait around for you to figure yourself out." Sophie and Dwayne both knew that what they were saying was hurting both the other person and themselves but that didn't stop them from shouting their insults.

"Are we breaking up?" Dwayne asked the question as though he didn't care, but inside, he knew that he did.

"I don't know, maybe." Sophie took this as a chance to throw his own remark back at him. Then she turned and walked towards her house.

"Wait, Sophie, at least let me drive you home!" he called; she would have to walk a mile back other wise. She responded by flipping him off and silently continuing to walk away. "Shit," Dwayne muttered.

"Dude, you fucked up!" some guy walking past him cat called.

"Fuck you." Dwayne turned and walked silently back towards the VW bus that awaited him in the parking lot.

Dwayne turned the key in the lock of his house, and walked inside. He shut the door, locking it behind him, then he leaned back against it, and let out a long, deep, sigh. "You're home early," Dwayne jumped a little upon hearing the voice. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, but it's only 10:30, Sheryl told me that you wouldn't be back until around midnight." Speaking to Dwayne was Connie.

"Yeah, well, Sophie and I got in to a fight. I mean, we've had tiny little spats before, but not much, and nothing like this…" Dwayne trailed off; he didn't want to remember the fight.

"Oh really? That's too bad…do you want to talk about it?" Connie sat down on the couch and motioned that he join her.

"Not really…" but he sat down anyway.

"Is there anything that I can do to help?" Connie scooted closer to him on the couch, and put her hand on his knee.

"I dunno." Dwayne shrugged. "I don't really see how you-" Connie leaned over and kissed him. "Ok, I take that back." They kissed again.

About five minutes later, Olive rose from bed to get some water. On the way back from the kitchen, she dropped the glass to the ground as she saw her brother on the couch, making out with the baby sitter. The shattering of the glass startled both teens. "What are you guys doing? Dwayne, that's not your girlfriend." Olive was confused.

"Oh, he knows that, I was just teaching him how to kiss so that he doesn't disappoint Sophie." Connie thought fast, and Dwayne nodded in agreement.

"Oh, ok." Olive didn't know not to believe Connie, it seemed perfectly logical in her mind.

"Yeah, here, I'll tuck you back in." Connie stood and walked with the little girl back to the room. "Goodnight hon."

"Night."

"Oh, and don't tell anybody about me teaching your brother, he doesn't want to come off as inexperienced in front of his girlfriend, ok?" Connie smiled at Olive, who nodded. She shut off the light, and left the room, leaving the door part open, the Olive liked it.

"Well, that was bad," Dwayne said when Connie walked back in to the front room.

"It was fine, it's really no big deal." Connie shrugged and moved to sit in a chair diagonally opposite from Dwayne.

"I'm going to regret this, aren't I."

"If you want to keep things alright with Sophie, then probably," Connie shrugged as though it was nothing.

"I mean, Sophie and I are still technically together, we haven't broken up, we just had a fight, and I cheated on her already!"

"Well, you didn't completely cheat, it's not like we had sex or anything."

"Still, close enough," Dwayne said.

"Hey, it'll be ok." Connie comforted a little, no matter how her behavior was, she was still a nice enough person.

"Yeah, maybe. It's also a possibility that I just killed my first real relationship."

"Eh," Connie shrugged. "I'm sure you'll make it work." They just sat there in silence for a little while.

"You know, you can go home, you're is pinned to the bulletin board, I'll go get it." Dwayne stood and returned a few seconds later, handing Connie the check that Sheryl had already filled out based on work from 5 to midnight.

"Alright, thanks, night." With that, Connie left. Dwayne headed to his room and lay down on his bed, just staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come and take him away from the memory of his fight with Sophie.


	6. Chapter 6

"Sophie, I'm sorry about the fight last night, I said things that I shouldn't have said, things that I really didn't mean. Anyway, I have something very important that I need to talk to you about, so please, please call me back." Dwayne hung up the phone and cursed. It was early the next morning, and Dwayne, feeling awful about what he had done, had been unable to sleep. As soon as he deemed it late enough for Sophie to be awake, he had called her. The first time, she didn't answer, he didn't leave a message, the second time, however, he did. Something gave him the feeling that she knew who was calling, that she picked up her cell phone, and saw his number flash on the screen, too angry at him to answer; she had let it go to voicemail. Dwayne kicked the wall of his bedroom. "Shit," he whispered.

"Dwayne? Are you alright?" Olive asked with concern. She had been standing in his doorway, but he hadn't noticed.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Dwayne gave Olive a fake smile, but she knew him well enough to be able to pick up on his lie.

"What's wrong?" she asked, not bothering to tell him that she knew he was lying, she went straight to the source. Dwayne sighed.

"Sophie and I had a fight, and she won't answer my calls, I don't know what's happening. It was all a big mistake, but it was my fault, and I screwed up." Dwayne fell down on top of his bed. Olive crawled up next to him. Both of them lay their on their backs, staring up at the parachute that was attached to Dwayne's ceiling.

"I'm sorry," Olive said finally. "Mom and dad fight all the time though, just apologize. Just say you're sorry."

"I wish I could, but she has to call me back first." Dwayne sighed, he didn't want to tell Olive how awful it felt, he didn't want her to think that her parents felt this way all the time, even though he knew that they probably did.

"She will," Olive said. "I'm sure she will. You're too nice not to call back." Olive turned on her side and smiled at her brother, who rolled over to face her as well.

"Thanks," Dwayne said, smiling at the girl, this time the smile was genuine. "I'm still worried though. You know that I have a tendency to make mistakes."

"Yes, but you also have a history of fixing them."

"Yeah…" Dwayne sat up, and Olive followed suit. "But this is slightly different. You guys are my family, you sort of have to forgive me if I apologize, Sophie doesn't." Olive didn't respond verbally to that, but instead, she put her arms around Dwayne's neck and gave him a hug. He patted the small girl's back, and she tightened her grip for a bit longer before letting go. "Anyway, I have to study, Monday marks the beginning of finals week for the first semester," Dwayne said. He knew however, that when Olive left the room, he wouldn't hit the books, he never studied for finals, he didn't have to, he just needed his space still. He lay on his bed almost all day, reading books mindlessly, taking in to a word. Every time the phone rang, he held his breath, hoping for a call from Sophie, but the phone was never for him. Saturday drifted in to Sunday, Dwayne slept most of Sunday, claiming to be ill, only Olive knew any better, but she said nothing, what was Dwayne's business would continue to be Dwayne's business until he made the decision to tell his family about it.

"Hey, this is Sophie, leave a message, I'll make sure and call back." Dwayne called again Sunday evening, only to receive her voicemail again.

"Sophie, please, I know you got my last message. Just call me back, I really need to talk to you. I'm so sorry for everything I said. I swear to god! Can't you just believe me? I need to talk to you so badly, I miss you, really, just call me, ok? Please. I can't stop thinking about you, it's killing me, this guilt, and I don't usually say things like this." Dwayne hung up the phone, and took it back out to the kitchen to hang it up.

"Are you feeling any better?" Sheryl asked as Dwayne emerged from his room.

"No, not really, I think I'm gonna go back to bed, I don't want to miss finals tomorrow." He turned.

"Dwayne, you should probably eat something," Sheryl suggested. "You didn't eat a thing yesterday, and you haven't eaten anything yet today. It might help make you feel better, I can warm up some soup if you want."

"Alright." Dwayne agreed to indulge his mother, not because he was hungry. Dwayne walked back to his room while Sheryl fixed the soup. He crawled back on to his bed, and then under the blankets to keep up the appearance of being sick. A few minutes later, he heard a knock on his bedroom door. "Come in," he said in a barely audible whisper.

"Here, it's lentil." Olive walked in to room with a tray bearing a steaming bowl of lentil soup and a glass of water.

"Thanks," he said. She walked over to the bed, and handed him the tray as he sat up.

"Are you ok? I take it that Sophie hasn't called back yet, but you really aren't taking this too well. You really care about her, don't you." Olive phrased her sentence as a statement, and not a question.

"Yeah, I do. I don't know why this is hitting me so hard though, I really didn't intend for it, I didn't mean to fall for her to be honest." Dwayne sighed, when he took Sophie out the first time, he was just looking for a friend, and it turned in to more outside of his control.

"I'm sure it will be alright Dwayne. Really, you're capable of fixing this, I promise you." Dwayne ignored the spoon, and while Olive spoke, he quickly drank the hot lentils.

"When did you get like this?" Dwayne asked her once he finished.

"Like what?" Olive asked.

"Understanding, wise, so grown up," Dwayne looked at her seriously.

"I don't know, I don't think I changed…did I?" Olive looked confused.

"More then you know." Dwayne shook his head. "You've become almost a completely different person. The only thing that hasn't changed is your ability to care about other people, it's amazing, you've got all of these good things about you, and you're only in the third grade."

"Is that a good thing?" Olive asked, not sure of what he was telling her.

"Yeah, actually it is, just kind of, you know, unexpected." Dwayne gave her a look that words couldn't explain. It was a brotherly look that someone who wasn't in their family would mistake as a look of sheer confusion, but Olive took it rightly as a symbol of love.

"I don't want you to be like this," Olive said as Dwayne started on his orange juice. "I want you to get out of bed, and be like you were." Olive cuddled up to her brother, causing him to nearly spill the orange juice.

"I know, I know, I will, I just need a little bit of time before can I come around full circle, ok?"

"What does that mean?"

"Oh, it just means that I need some time before I can be me again, I'm working on it, I swear, soon Olive, soon." Dwayne spent the rest of the day finishing _The Scarlet Letter,_ as he would need the information from the book for his English test the next day. For the first time in his academic career, he didn't get it, he didn't understand the significance of the red letter, he didn't understand the symbols of the child, the bright lights, Dimmesdale's hand over his heart, anything. He threw the book down in frustration, causing several of the pages to bend over and rip out. The force that he had used against the defenseless paperback surprised even himself.

"Dwayne," Sheryl knocked softly on his door and came in before he said anything. "Sorry to bother you, but Olive wants you to read to her tonight, she asked me to ask you if you would, she said she knows you're not feeling well, but it might be good for you."

"Yeah, I'll do it." Dwayne stood up slowly. Anything to get his mind off of Sophie and _The Scarlet Letter._

"Thanks, I'm sorry," Sheryl moved aside as he stepped out of his room and walked towards Olive's. When he entered, he shut the door.

"What'll it be?" he asked, squatting in front of her short book shelf.

"I don't know, anything," Olive shrugged from where she was sitting on her bed in her pajamas, which consisted of an old shirt of Richard's and an oversized pair of pajama bottoms from the local value store.

"Ok, well, I like this one." Dwayne selected a book from the shelf. "_Green Eggs and Ham,_ Dr. Suess, otherwise known as Theodore Geisel."

"Come on, that's from when I was a lot younger!" Olive whined, smiling.

"Well, tough luck. You said that I got to choose, and I don't think I can handle anything above the reading level of a first grader right now." Dwayne made a joke, trying to lighten his own situation, and hoping that Olive would find it funny as well. She laughed, but he didn't know if that was to humor him, or whether she actually found it funny.

"Alright, fine, but only because you can't handle anything harder," Olive smiled again as Dwayne stood up and walked over to the bed, where he sat next to her and began reading the book.

"Ok, lights out," he said when he finished, and moved to leave. Olive stopped him getting off the bed.

"Wait, not yet." She grabbed the back of his shirt.

"What?" he asked.

"Are you going to be ok?" Olive asked, looking at him with defined concern in her eyes.

"Yes, yeah, I'm going to be fine, I told you, I just needed some time. Thanks for worrying though…I think, but don't lose any sleep over it." Dwayne smiled at his sister, her care for him touched him greatly. "Is that everything?" he asked, preparing himself to leave again.

"No."

"What else?" he asked her.

"I think that you should take Sophie a flower to school tomorrow. Girls like flowers, I would know." She gave him a knowing look.

"Where would I get a flower early enough in the morning?" he asked.

"Take a rose from mom's garden, she won't notice one missing."

"Mom's roses aren't exactly note worthy…" Dwayne thought back outside to the garden with the scraggly roses. Occasionally one turned out nice, but usually they were just wild roses.

"It's more the thought that counts, just find the best one, and maybe write her a note to go with it, if she cares about you like she should, it will be enough."

"Seriously, how do you know these things?" Dwayne was shocked by the level of knowing Olive seemed to have reached.

"I read it in a book at school."

"Oh, that makes sense I guess, huh." Dwayne smiled at her, a little relieved that she wasn't maturing on him too quickly.

"Just do it, ok? I think it might help. I want it to help, and I want to meet Sophie."

"Alright, I'll think about it," Dwayne said. "I'll at least take her the flower, maybe the note, it depends on if I can think of something productive to put in it that I can't say better aloud."

"Alright." Olive sighed, she wished that he would just do it, and not talk about it.

"Is that all?" Dwayne asked again.

"Yes, that's all." Olive lay down in bed, and Dwayne tucked the covers around her.

"Good night." Dwayne shut the light off.

"Good night." Olive snuggled in the blankets as Dwayne shut the door halfway, and walked back to his room, only to face a predominately sleepless night, filled with tossing and turning.


	7. Chapter 7

Dwayne did what Olive said. He got up five minutes early, and went out to Sheryl's garden to clip a rose before she woke up. He wrote out a note that said simply _Sophie, I'm Sorry, please talk to me. – Dwayne. _Not wanting to cause any sort of disturbance, he didn't break apart her circle of friends to make the delivery, instead, he put the rose and the note on her desk in their English class before anyone entered the class. He sat down and waited for the bell to ring, and for students to enter. He watched her in the crowded room as she picked up the flower and note. Sophie didn't smile, and she didn't look at Dwayne, instead, she silently handed the note to Arielle, who was also in the class. Dwayne read Arielle's face, then watched as she spoke to Sophie.

"Sophie, come on, you should at least talk to him after he went through the trouble of getting the rose and writing note. He apologized, really, you're actually being stupid." Arielle was arguing Dwayne's case, he couldn't believe it. Arielle had been nice to him, but he had thought that was just because she didn't want to lose Sophie as a friend.

"I know, but that stubborn side of me is winning out! It's not like I can help it, I'm still mad at him for some reason!" Sophie argued back, sighing.

"God, you hold a grudge like no other!" Arielle was slightly exasperated.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you could please settle down, put your things in the back of the room, we're going to start the test." The teacher, Mr. Vaughn, interrupted the conversation, and Dwayne looked to the front of the room so that Sophie and Arielle wouldn't know that he had been looking at them. That day, he sat through two finals, English and algebra two. Both of them went well, except for _The Scarlet Letter _portion on the English test. After both of the two hour long exams were finished, Dwayne walked home. At 2:30, he made the decision to take the bus and pick up Olive. Frank walked to work, so the car was available. He took the keys from the wrack in the kitchen, and went on his way.

"Hey," Dwayne said to Olive when she came out of the school. Her face instantly lit up at finding out that she wouldn't have to take the bus.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"Don't be so glad to see me," he joked. "Half day at school, we have them all week, it's because of finals. Anyway, you have been being bullied; can you tell me who's been doing that?" Dwayne knelt down to Olive's height. She pointed to a boy just leaving the building, and connected to someone who looked to be his brother, a boy whom Dwayne recognized from his school. "Ok, you stay here for just a minute, I'll be right back." Dwayne left Olive and walked over to the two boys.

"Hey, you go to my school, don't you? You're that silent kid." The older boy looked at Dwayne.

"Yeah, I used to be. Hey, listen, you're brother, I'm assuming he's your brother at least," Dwayne motioned to the younger boy. "He's been bullying my little sister, and it really needs to stop, so if you could maybe get him to stop, that would be good." Dwayne was trying not to be rude as he spoke, and he was a little unsure of how to word his request.

"What? Why would I do that? He can't help it if she's vulnerable, that's her fault and maybe yours a little too, and besides, what are you going to do about it?" The older boy sneered at Dwayne, whose sole response was to punch the guy. He bounced back from the surprising boy fairly quickly, and lunged at Dwayne. "So this is how you want to play? Didn't anyone ever tell you never to mess with me?"

"No, no one ever tells me anything," Dwayne said, ducking an uppercut. Both boys were lanky, and both were good fighters, so no winner was clear right off the bat. Olive was a little nervous on the side lines, she had never seen her brother get in to a physical fight with someone, and wasn't sure he could handle himself, she was quickly proven wrong.

"Ok boys, break it up!" The principal of the elementary school came roaring out to the front. Someone from the crowd that the pair had inevitably attracted had gone to the school office for help. Before the principal could reach them, however, the other boy split to avoid trouble. Dwayne followed suit, quickly finding Olive and walking hurriedly towards the VW.

"Oh my gosh, are you ok?" Olive asked as they slowed and climbed in to the car.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Dwayne smiled and put the keys in to the cars ignition.

"You probably shouldn't have done that," Olive said a few minutes later while they were driving.

"I know, I know, but he was being a complete jack ass, he had it coming, just don't tell mom and dad, ok?" Dwayne asked Olive.

"You don't think that they're going to see the blood?" One of the hits had caused blood to slowly trickle down from underneath Dwayne's right eye, which, he thought to himself, would probably be black in the morning.

"Just back me up when I say that I tripped, ok?" Olive nodded. "I just don't want mom to worry about it." Dwayne felt that he needed to justify lying to his family so that Olive would understand why he was asking her to do so. "Home mom!" Dwayne called as they walked in the door minutes later.

"Hey, Dwayne, you have company, and- oh my god, you're bleeding! Are you alright? What happened?" Sheryl asked, worriedly walking to the front room, Sophie close behind her, looking slightly worried, and a little nervous.

"Nothing, I just tripped, I'll be fine." Dwayne walked back towards his room, and Sophie followed him.

"Dwayne, I'm sorry that I didn't call you back, and I know that didn't talk to you at school, but I've been thinking about it, and I know that I shouldn't have started the fight. I mean, you're a teenage guy, maybe you were telling the truth that you can't help looking at other girls, it doesn't mean that you're going to do anything with them, I should have just trusted you." Sophie spoke quickly as soon as they were out of earshot from the rest of the family.

"No, you were right, you shouldn't have," Dwayne spoke after thinking for a moment.

"What? Why?" Sophie asked him, sounding a little worried.

"Right after our fight I came home and made out with Olive's babysitter. It was honestly nothing, I was upset, but if you don't ever want to talk to me again, I would understand. I mean, I tried to call and tell you, but it didn't seem like something that could be left in a message." Dwayne looked down at the floor. He was unable to look at Sophie, as she looked so hurt.

"Oh," Sophie said finally. "So that's what you wanted to tell me when you left those messages?" she asked, fighting back tears.

"Yeah, but you wouldn't call me back."

"I know." Sophie let the tears go, first allowing one to roll down her cheek, shortly followed by others.

"Sophie, I really care about you," Dwayne put his arm around her shoulders, and moved her so that they were sitting on his bed. "I didn't want to hurt you, that's why I told you, but I also know that what I did can't be cancelled out with an apology or coming clean."

"Yeah…I know." Sophie thought for several minutes, crying with Dwayne's arm around her. "But still, apologizing and admitting your mistake right away is admirable…I'm going to have to think." Sophie spoke slowly and tearfully, but articulated herself well. "However, while we're on the topic of honesty, how did you really get that cut below your eye?"

"I got it in a fight, a fight which I technically started." Dwayne looked at her.

"What? Why? Who with?" she sounded worried, Dwayne didn't usually fight, that was common knowledge, and never fought, let alone started, physical fights. This wasn't like him at all.

"This boy has been bullying Olive at school, and Richard and mom wouldn't do anything about it, so I went to talk to his brother about it, who turned out to be Chris Knight, so of course, he was being an asshole. He said that Olive deserved to be bullied, which no one deserves, so I punched him, which, of course, led to a fight." Dwayne explained the circumstances.

"You picked a fight with Chris Knight and came out with just the one cut?" She asked him, surprised.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that there's going to be a black eye there tomorrow, besides, I think he's a bit of practice these days, what with everyone being too afraid to fight him." Dwayne shrugged.

"It was really nice of you to defend your sister like that." Sophie gave him a small smile through the slowing, but still coming tears. Dwayne just shrugged. "Here, let me clean the cut for you, it would be bad for that to get infected, and you're letting the blood drip down your shirt, it's going to stain."

"So you don't hate me?" Dwayne asked a minute later as Sophie wet a paper towel from the kitchen and put some soap on it.

"No, I don't hate you, but I'm not forgiving you yet either," she said honestly.

"That's more then fair."

"This might-"

"Sting, yeah, I know, just get it over with, it's not going to hurt any more then the punch that caused it." Dwayne cut her off before she delivered a cliché line.

"True," she smiled as she wiped the blood from his face, neck, and collarbone.

"Thanks," Dwayne said, drying his face with a towel once she was finished.

"Go change shirts. If we boil this one in water now we might be able to get the blood out before it stains." Dwayne nodded and headed to his room while Sophie started to heat the water. He thought about how lucky he was that Sophie didn't hate him, and he thought about it felt to see such a wonderful person cry, and to have yourself to blame for the tears. He had been angry with her for not trusting him, but no one can be completely perfect, or completely trusting. He swapped his white shirt for a dark blue one, and went back out to the kitchen to join Sophie, a slight smile gracing his lips.

"Dwayne!" Phone!" Richard called out later that night.

"Coming!" Dwayne rushed to the kitchen to answer the call. "Hello?" he said, taking the phone from his step dad.

"Dwayne, hi, this is Arielle Hertz, Sophie's friend."

"Oh, hi." Dwayne was surprised to hear her on the other end of the phone. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, I talked to Sophie after she saw you today, and first, I want to say that you are a bastard, and lucky that she didn't slap you and leave. On a lighter note, I wanted to say that it was very admirable of you to come clean right away, and how admirable it was of you to admit that you knew what you did was wrong. Sophie really likes you, and I must say that I don't hate you so much myself, but if you want to gain her trust back, I would stay away from the babysitters in the future." Arielle spoke, and Dwayne listened.

"I'm really sorry for what I did to her, I really do regret it, if you would tell her that, I-"

"She knows, she just needed some time, but she told me that she misses you, and tomorrow, I'm sure that she'll come back to you, just don't avoid her, maybe bring her another flower, but don't be afraid to give it to her with us around. It may not seem like many of her friends like you, and I'm not going to lie to you, they don't, but the ones that dislike you don't know what you did, so none of them hate you even more. Just be comfortable around her environment, it may prove to be good for you." Dwayne now realized that Arielle was coaching him on how to get Sophie back.

"Thanks, um, why are you doing this?" Dwayne asked. "Why are you helping me?"

"I'm helping you because it's good for Sophie, and because it's good for you, you two seem to mesh well together, and while I never would have predicted it, it's the truth," Arielle stated simply. "Now I really have to go, but good luck, ok? Oh, just one more thing. If you hurt her in away way ever again, I'm going to hunt you down and kill you."

"Somehow, I don't doubt that. Well, um, thank you, goodbye." Arielle hung up after Dwayne finished speaking, and Dwayne put the phone down in a slight daze.

"Who was that?" Olive asked.

"A friend of Sophie's," Dwayne replied.

"Are you two getting back together?" Olive asked hopefully. "She's pretty," the little girl added, smiling up at her brother.

"I think so, we're getting there." He looked down at his sister. "She is pretty, isn't she." He nodded in agreement with his little sister.

"She is. I'm glad that you're going to be doing better."

"Are you?"

"Yes." She nodded. "Thank you for trying to help with Carl earlier too, his brother seems to be just as bad."

"Yeah, well, I'd say Carl learned everything that he knows from Chris." Dwayne sighed and shook his head. "Those are a couple of peas in a pod, but I think they've gone rotten, perishable goods you know?" Dwayne was in a much lighter mood after talking to Arielle, and he felt the inclination to add in a little joke.


	8. Chapter 8

"My brother was going to kick your brother's ass, he's lucky that the principle showed up when he did," Carl Knight said to Olive, who sat next to him, while they were doing group work. She closed her eyes for a split second, and then tried her best to ignore him.

"Really? It didn't look that way to me." Both Carl and Olive were surprised to hear Jeremy talking, he usually kept to himself.

"How would you know?" Carl shot back.

"I was watching the fight, and as far as I could tell, Olive's brother was doing just as well if not better than your brother." Olive couldn't help but to smile, Jeremy was standing up for her! Well, for her brother, but same thing. His statement also seemed to have shut Carl up. Jeremy had gone out on a limb for Olive, so she was now willing to do the same.

"Hey, can I sit with you?" Olive didn't go sit with her girlfriends at lunch, but instead carried her sky blue lunchbox over to the table where Jeremy was sitting alone, as usual.

"Yeah, sure." He gave her a small smile and she sat down next to him.

"Do you want one of my cookies?" she offered, opening her lunch and offering him an Oreo.

"Really?" he asked both hopefully, and a little surprise.

"Of course! It was really, really nice of you to stand up to Carl for Dwayne." Olive opened the plastic baggie and let him choose his own cookie.

"It was nothing, I saw the fight, and your brother was doing great, Carl was lying." Jeremy smiled as he ate Olive's Oreo.

"Yeah, he _was _doing pretty well, although I didn't even know he could fight, at all, I've never seen him hit anyone." Olive shrugged, Dwayne was usually really pacifistic.

"Really? I've seen everyone in my family hit someone. My brother and my dad fight all of the time."

"Does your mom hit people too?" Olive asked.

"If she does, I wouldn't know. She left when I was three." Jeremy shrugged.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Olive offered. "Dwayne's dad lives in Florida…" She didn't really know what else to say.

"Oh, so that makes him, what? Your half brother?" Jeremy asked.

"Yeah, but he's been around my whole life," Olive nodded.

"Wow, he must really like you if he's willing to start a fight with Carl's brother for his half sister."

"I think he likes me pretty well, he's shown a few signs of it over the year."

"That's good. My brother tells me that he hates me every single day, but my dad seems to like me just fine though."

"I'm sorry your brother hates you…but it's good that you're dad likes you. How old is he?"

"My dad?" Jeremy asked, a bit confused.

"Oh, no, I meant your brother, sorry." Olive chuckled a little bit.

"Oh, he's 18, almost gone to college."

"Well then, you won't have to deal with him anymore."

"True," Jeremy shrugged and smiled.

"I'm sorry that I chased you at recess so many times," Olive said, recalling her antagonizing behavior from past weeks.

"It's ok, it was kind of fun."

"Do you want to come over after school sometime?" Olive asked.

"Yeah, that would be nice." Jeremy's face lit up in a smile, as did Olive's. The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch, and Jeremy and Olive walked back to class as friends.

"Hey, who put you on Prozac?" Dwayne asked as Olive stepped in the door with Sheryl.

"Dwayne!" Sheryl scolded.

"What' Prozac?" Olive asked, a confused look on her face.

"Uh, nothing, forget it." Dwayne took the hint from Sheryl, who was throwing Dwayne a look that basically said 'don't you dare tell her this stuff yet, she's still a little too young.'

"Uh, ok…" Olive was a little confused.

"What Dwayne meant to ask you, was why do you look so happy?" Sheryl rephrased Dwayne's teen talk to make it sound more child friendly.

"Oh, uh, no reason." Olive was terrible at lying, but that was mainly because she had no experience in the field. Dwayne couldn't help but to stifle a little laugh.

"Alright then," Sheryl gave a Dwayne an eye roll as he chuckled, and he immediately shut up, neither of them wanted Olive to feel unimportant.

"You know what, you're looking pretty happy yourself," Olive said to Dwayne.

"Not happy so much as just not upset." Dwayne shrugged. Sophie had forgiven him at school that day, and they were 'back together'.

"You're weird," Olive said, giggling. Sheryl walked in to the kitchen, leaving the siblings to talk together.

"Ok, you know what? Now that mom is gone, please tell me what's going on. You usually smile, yes, but you don't usually glow about it." Dwayne gave Olive a look.

"Ugh, fine." Olive tried to sound like he was forcing her to, but Dwayne could tell that she was glad that she would be able to talk to someone about it who wouldn't make a huge deal out of it.

"Alright then, spill already, I don't have all day." Olive raised her eyebrow at him. "Ok, ok, I do have all day, but I would much more prefer that this didn't take all of it."

"Ok, so remember Carl?" Olive asked.

"Uh, no?" Dwayne was a little lost.

"Oh, he's the guy who's brother you got in a fight with yesterday."

"Ah," Dwayne remembered now.

"Anyway, so at school today, he was being a complete and total bully, he said that you were going to have your ass kicked by his brother, and that you were lucky that the principal intervened, or it would have gotten ugly." Olive explained. "It was upsetting me, but I didn't know what to do, so I just tried to ignore it. But guess what?" Olive didn't wait for Dwayne to answer. "Jeremy stood up for you, he told Carl that you were doing just as good of a job in the fight, if not better, then Chris."

"Wait, he's that one boy right? The one that had a fondness for that mom wasn't supposed to tell us about?" Dwayne was clarifying.

"Yeah, that's him, anyway, I sat with him at lunch because he was so nice to stand up for you, and he was all alone, because he always is. Oh, and he said that he would love to come over after school some time." Olive finished her story, smiling brightly at her brother.

"Wow, that's really something, I must say, I didn't think that the fight would be elementary school news, but whatever." Dwayne shrugged.

"Well, it is, a lot of people were talking about it today, a lot of people have no idea who you were. Most people who saw the fight thought that it looked like you just picked something with Chris, no reason, and no one except for Chris, Carl, you, me, and Jeremy knew that you were my brother."

"That might be a good thing…" Dwayne trailed off.

"Why?" Olive didn't understand why it would matter at all.

"I just, I don't want people to think that I'm like that; I don't want to seem like the kind of person who goes up and punches a guy for no real reason." Dwayne shrugged.

"I thought that you didn't care at all what people think." Olive was confused.

"I didn't, but now I sorta do."

"This is about Sophie, isn't it." Dwayne blushed as Olive made her statement.

"Yeah, at least a little bit, I mean, I just don't want her to think that I'm always like that, and I don't want her to get caught between other people thinking that I'm just as bad as Chris, and knowing that I'm not."

"Alright, well whatever, you lost me back at the first 'want her to think'." Olive smiled, but looked confused at the same time.

"Let's just say I don't want to be known as the guy who fights with people just because."

"But you're not like that at all…"

"I know that, and you know that, but you have to remember that I don't know very many people at all, and the people that I do know don't like me very much, aside from you and Arielle, and Sophie, that is." Dwayne tried to explain what he meant to Olive, but he didn't know how, she was so much younger than him, and while she understood a lot, she couldn't understand everything.

"Oh…ok." Olive didn't understand, but she wasn't going to push it, Dwayne was clearly struggling enough.

"So, anyway, when are you going to have Mr. Studly over?" Dwayne made fun of his little sister.

"I dunno, and please don't call him that," she smiled.

"Alright, fine, whatever you say. No more Mr. Studly, what, Jeremy? Is that better?" Olive rolled her eyes at Dwayne. "Hey, you are way too young to start up with that eye rolling thing, especially at me; I'm your brother, save that sort of look for your parents, ok?"

"Ok, fine, I'll save it for mom and dad, if you promise to be more like this every day, it sucks when you're all angsty and depressed all of the time, like you were over the weekend."

"Who taught you that word?" Dwayne asked.

"What, angsty?"

"Yeah, I didn't know what that word meant until two years ago." Dwayne was a little impressed with her vocabulary.

"Oh, that's how I heard Dad describe you when he was talking about you to Mom." Olive explained.

"What? Olive, did you hear what else they were saying about me?" Curiosity over what his mom and step dad were saying about him over took him.

"Oh, not much, there was something about how you were all angsty and depressed one minute, and then alive and happy the next, something about some disease Dad said he thought you had, North Pole or something." Olive shrugged.

"Bipolar? Your dad thinks that I'm bipolar?" Dwayne was a little surprised.

"Yeah, but mom told him that you weren't, she said that they'd already tested you for all of that stuff. It wasn't much; really, I think Dad was just a little fed up with the way you were treating everyone over the weekend.

"Geez, he really hates me," Dwayne shook his head in slight disbelief.

"No he doesn't, he doesn't hate you Dwayne, no one hates you. He just doesn't understand you, that's all, I mean, you're not his kid, but he's lived in the same house as you longer then he has with his own kid, it confuses him." Dwayne gave Olive a disbelieving look. "Oh, I over heard Mom and Dad talking about that too," Olive explained to Dwayne once she noticed the look Dwayne was giving her.

"Oh, ok." Dwayne didn't know what else to say. "Oh well, life is like that, some people like you, some people don't."

"And Sophie likes you, so you have a girlfriend." Olive smiled at Dwayne, talking to him in a sing song sort of voice.

"True enough, but I can't help thinking that there's something wrong with the relationship, I mean, why would she like me so much so randomly?"

"Dwayne, stop questioning it, just go with it."

"God, like I said the other day, you are getting WAY too smart WAY to fast. Are you sure that you're still living your childhood?" Dwayne raised a joking eyebrow at her.

"I promise I am, but living with you and Uncle Frank, both of you guys are really smart, definitely gives me a maturity advantage."

"Did mom tell you that?" Dwayne asked.

"No, Dad did."

"Wait, Richard said that Frank and I were smart?" Dwayne had to admit that he was caught off guard by that statement.

"Yeah, see? I told you that he didn't hate you."

"I guess you were right…I just can't believe he said that about me, and Frank too, that's just surprising is all." They sat there for a minute, smiling at each other. "I have homework," Dwayne said abruptly.

"Yeah, me too, but if I need help…"

"You just come and find me, ok?" Dwayne stood up, and ruffled her hair before he walked back to his room to get started on all of the homework that he had to do.


	9. Chapter 9

"So, what are you doing this weekend?" Sophie asked Dwayne when he walked her home from school on Thursday, five weeks after they got back together.

"Nothing really, you?" Dwayne shrugged. They had been going out for almost two months now, if you didn't count the short break up, and they had been going out most weekends, and he walked her home every day after school. They had their first before their breakup, but had kept it pretty slow. Now, they made out in his car after every time they went out, and sometimes on her porch after school if her parents weren't home.

"Nothing," she smiled.

"Do you want to go out tomorrow?" Dwayne asked her.

"Yeah, totally, what do you want to do?" she smiled, even though she had known that he was going to ask.

"I dunno, whatever you want to do is fine with me. We could go get dinner, or go to a movie or something, or just stay at home and watch a movie, whatever you want."

"I think we should stay in Friday, go out Saturday." Sophie wound her arm around Dwayne's as they continued walking.

"Ok, well, my house is going to have everybody, at least at this point, so can we do it at your house? Or do I have to beg my mom to leave us alone?" Dwayne asked, he didn't like it when his family saw him kissing Sophie, for some reason, he had no problem telling Olive and Frank about it, but it was completely different if they saw it.

"Oh, no we can do it at my place, no problem." They usually went to Sophie's. She was an only child, and her parents didn't really seem to care what she did as long as they knew where she was.

"What movie should I bring?" Dwayne asked.

"Uh, whatever you want, it's not like we're going to watch most of it anyway." Sophie shrugged. Both of them knew that it would be the same as it always was. They would eat dinner together while watching the first part of the movie. After dinner, they started watching the movie, then Sophie would put her head on Dwayne's shoulder, and he would put his arm around her. A few minutes later, she would look up at him, and they would start kissing, but they never got further then that, Dwayne knew that he wasn't ready, and Sophie didn't argue with his boundaries.

"Ok, well, how about High Fidelity?" Dwayne asked, Frank and Richard kept saying how good it was, but he'd never bothered to watch it.

"I've seen that, but ok."

"Is it any good?"

"It's alright, it's not as funny as some people think, but it has a fine storyline, and the acting is pretty damn good." Sophie shrugged, she didn't care what they watched, she never did.

"Alright, then it's a date," Dwayne said as they reached her house.

"Yeah, it is." Sophie leaned over and kissed him. "You can sit for a minute or two if you want," she gestured towards her porch swing. "My parents aren't home."

"Ok, sure." They both walked over to the swing and took off their back packs before sitting down. Dwayne wasted no time leaning over to Sophie and kissing her. Five minutes later, he stopped. "I should probably go; your parents could be home any time. Not that they would mind, but I don't want to cause any accidental trouble."

"Alright, well, I'll see you tomorrow, oh, and come over at like seven tomorrow night ok?" She picked up her back pack and walked inside. Dwayne started back towards home, he would walk back to school and hop a bus from there, it was a bit of a walk.

"Hey, Dwayne can I talk to you for a second?" Frank asked when he walked in the door after his bus ride home.

"Uh, yeah, is everything alright?" Frank almost never asked Dwayne if he could talk to him, he usually just said what he needed to say, and left him alone.

"Yeah, everything is fine. Listen, you've been seeing Sophie for awhile now, and Richard and Sheryl wanted to make sure that you knew about, well you know…" Frank trailed off.

"Oh my god, my mom asked you to give me the sex talk?" Dwayne tried to stop himself from laughing at his uncle's words.

"Basically, yeah."

"Ok, well here's what I know: Don't have sex unless your in love, when you do have sex, use a condom, but since they're not 100 effective, make sure you use birth control too, because you don't want to be a teenage father, or get any STD's." Dwayne stopped, he learned about sex ed in school…every single year.

"Pretty good, anything else?" Frank asked.

"Yeah, for girls, up the ass hurts like a bitch." Dwayne smiled.

"Dwayne! I can't believe you said that!" Frank chuckled.

"Well, its true isn't it? That's what all of those movies basically say." Dwayne shrugged, he didn't think that it mattered much. "Besides, I don't think that Sophie and I are going to be doing it anytime soon."

"Why? Did she tell you that she's not ready?" Frank asked.

"No, _I _told her that _I'm _not ready, as far as I know, she's perfectly ready. Something tells me that she's not exactly a virgin, but I don't know."

"You didn't ask your own girlfriend if she's a virgin?" Frank sounded a little surprised to hear this, as if it was a first date sort of question.

"Uh, no, it didn't really seem like my business." Dwayne shrugged again. "Still, doesn't much matter, I'm not ready."

"Alright, but if Sheryl asks, I gave you the talk. You're a smart kid, you know this stuff already." Frank gave Dwayne a friendly pat on the shoulder before excusing himself.

"Mom, did you tell Frank to give me the fucking birds and the bees talk!?" Dwayne called.

"DWAYNE! WATCH YOUR MOUTH! Olive has a friend over!" Sheryl walked in the room, exasperated with Dwayne for shouting those words.

"Jesus mom, I'm sorry, but did you?"

"Well yeah, but I just wanted you to be informed, I mean, you and Sophie are getting close to two months at this point, and in these times, at your age, that might be long enough for you guys to make your own decisions," Sheryl explained.

"Fine, but just so you know, we're not having sex, ok? I'm not ready, and Sophie knows that, now would you please not bring it up again?" Dwayne could tell that his ears were turning pink around the edges.

"Ok, well thank you for telling me that. I'll stay out of it unless I think that there's a reason why I should get involved."

"Richard too?" Dwayne asked.

"Richard too." Sheryl promised.

"Who does Olive have over anyways? I thought her friends lived too far away for after school play dates?" Dwayne raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, Jeremy, that one boy," Sheryl answered.

"Oh yeah, she told me about him, where are they?" Dwayne asked, he wanted to meet Olive's new friend.

"Uh, I think they're in the TV room, you can go and check up on them if you want."

"Alright, will do." Dwayne dumped his back pack off in his room before heading to the TV room to find Olive and Jeremy. "Hey." Dwayne walked in and offered a greeting to the two third graders who were completely immersed in watching Scooby-Doo jump in to Shaggy's arms for the 10 millionth time. Olive screamed when he spoke.

"Oh, hi, sorry, I didn't know you were there," she said, catching her breath.

"Sheesh, I didn't mean to scare you, I'm sorry." Dwayne chuckled a little, and Jeremy turned around to face him as well.

"Oh, this is Jeremy, Jeremy, this is my brother, Dwayne." Olive made the introductions.

"Hey." Jeremy was soft spoken, and felt intimidated by the taller, older, black haired boy standing over them.

"Hey, welcome to the house." Dwayne bent down and sat with them, putting himself at a more even height.

"Uh, thanks." Jeremy spoke, barely above a whisper. Dwayne understood that the boy was shy, so he moved himself over to Olive's other side.

"Is it alright if I watch with you guys? I haven't watched Scooby-Doo in forever," Dwayne asked.

"Yeah, if it's ok with Jeremy." Olive turned to look at Jeremy, who nodded that it was fine if Dwayne watched the cartoon.

"Thanks." The three of them settled back in to the direction of the TV and watched to the end of the episode.

"I would have gotten away too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!" The cartoon ended with the typical line, delivered by the criminal once Shaggy, Scooby, Velma, Daphne, and Freddy caught and de-masked him.

"Jeremy, do you want to play monopoly?" Olive asked. Jeremy nodded affirmatively. "Dwayne? How about you?" Olive turned to her brother.

"Sure, why not." Homework was calling Dwayne from his back pack, but he didn't feel much like doing it, so he walked over to the game cupboard and took out the family's board. "Who wants to be what?" he asked, setting the board on the ground.

"Can I be the dog?" Olive asked. Dwayne and Jeremy both nodded that she could.

"Jeremy?" Dwayne asked.

"Uh, I'll take the racecar."

"Alright," Dwayne handed him the miniature car. "I will take the top hat, who wants to be banker?"

"Oh, I will if no one else wants to," Jeremy said. "I'm pretty good with math."

"Fine with me," Olive said.

"Yeah, me too, here." Dwayne handed Jeremy the messed up pile of monopoly bills, and set up the rest of the board while Olive helped Jeremy sort and deal the colorful money.

"No, not going to happen, no way." Olive looked defiantly at her brother, her eyes boring in to his forehead, burning with determination to hold her own.

"Come on! Ventnor for Vermont and Oriental is more then fair! The yellow monopoly is SO much better then the light blue one." Dwayne was practically begging.

"No, I won't give you a monopoly," she smiled in her devilish fashion.

"You'd be getting one too! And besides, if we don't make a deal, Jeremy is going to smoke both of our asses with those orange properties!" Dwayne attempted to convince her, but to no avail. "Come on, I'll give you Ventnor AND 300 bucks!"

"A thousand and we have a deal."

"I don't have a thousand bucks!" Dwayne laughed.

"I know." Olive smiled.

"You are a little devil, and you're gonna get your ass kicked by Jeremy, because you are being stupid." The two of them laughed, and Jeremy smiled.

"Ok, I can live with that, as long as _you _don't win."

"Oh, now that is evil!" Dwayne made a face at her before giving up and rolling the dice. "Go to jail, great, just what I needed!" Dwayne moved his piece to jail as Olive and Jeremy high fived.

"You're going down!" Olive said.

"I've noticed." Dwayne gave in.

"You're going down too you know," Jeremy pointed out to Olive; he seemed to be warming up a bit.

"Wanna bet?" she asked fiercely. He smiled again, and Dwayne just shook his head. Half an hour later, Dwayne hit New York with a hotel on it, and went out to Jeremy, however, he sat and watched as Olive and Jeremy finished out the game, ending with Olive's inevitable loss to Jeremy, who pumped his fist in the air and cheered as Olive went out. Jeremy went home after dinner, and Olive came padding in to Dwayne's room.

"Well, it looks you've got yourself a nice boy there."

"Thanks," Olive smiled.

"He's a little too good at Monopoly though, I might have to play a little harder on you two next time," Dwayne joked. He knew that Olive knew that he had played as hard as he could this time and he still lost.

"You know that you're going to lose anyway, right?" Olive smiled at him.

"Wanna bet?" he asked, imitating Olive's tone from the game earlier. She giggled and gave him a hug.

"What are the birds and the bees?" Olive asked, startling Dwayne.

"What?"

"What are the birds and the bees, you were yelling to mom about them earlier when Jeremy was over." Olive looked at him curiously. _God, this is worse then her asking what Prozac is, _Dwayne thought.

"Well, you'll learn when you get older." Explaining sex to Olive didn't seem like a good idea yet, and when she was old enough, it was probably not a good idea for him to be the one to tell her about it. He tried to change the subject. "What are you doing this weekend?"

"Nothing, just hanging around the house, I think I'm going over to Sarah's Saturday for the whole day, but that's all. Are you going out with Sophie?"

"Yeah, Friday I'm going over to her house, and Saturday we're going out somewhere." Dwayne smiled.

"Are you going to stay at her house?" Olive asked.

"No! Why would I do that?" Dwayne was caught off guard.

"I dunno, Jeremy said that his brother has his girlfriend stays the night a lot." Olive didn't seem to know that this was irregular.

"Oh, well uh, I don't really like sleepovers very much, you should know that." Dwayne hoped that she wouldn't ask any more questions.

"I know, but I thought it might be different since its Sophie."

"Well, it's not. Olive, you have to go to bed, I have to go to bed, its getting late." Dwayne knew that once she left, he wasn't going to be anywhere near bed, but this conversation was going to get awkward if it didn't end.

"Alright, good night." Olive stood up from the floor, where they had both been sitting, and walked towards the door.

"Night, now get outta here." Dwayne chuckled and threw a pillow gently at her. She giggled, and made her way towards her own room, smiling and thinking happily about how the day had gone.


	10. Chapter 10

"Alright, we're here," Dwayne stated. "You can open your eyes now." It was Saturday evening, and Dwayne had promised to do something special with Sophie.

"Oh wow, it's beautiful!" When they were driving, they had come to a stop at the base of a hill, and Dwayne had instructed Sophie to close her eyes. He led her up the hill to a gorgeous drop off, where he then allowed her to open her eyes.

"I know." Dwayne smiled and sat down at a flat part of the hill. Sophie joined him. From his back pack, Dwayne took two sandwiches, two cans of soda, and a bag of potato chips. "Not exactly a five star meal, but it will have to do."

"Its perfect." Sophie smiled as she began to eat, and they both watched the sunset. Once it was dark, Dwayne and Sophie packed up the meal and headed back down to the VW bus that was awaiting them. Dwayne put the back pack in the trunk, while Sophie climbed in to the passenger seat. He put the keys in to the ignition, but didn't turn them. Instead, he leaned over and gave Sophie a long, hard kiss. Once the kiss ended, Dwayne directed his focus back towards the keys in the ignition, but Sophie pulled him back to her, kissing him with just as much passion as he had just kissed her. This time, they didn't stop. Dwayne found Sophie's seat belt and unbuckled it. She pulled him in to the back seat, and sat on his lap, kissing him fiercely with as much energy as she had. Slowly, Dwayne's hands found their way under Sophie's shirt, running along her smooth back. One thing led to another, and soon Dwayne's shirt was tossed over the seat, and landed on the steering wheel; Sophie's didn't take long to follow. They continued kissing, and Sophie lay down on the back seat, pulling Dwayne on top of her.

"Goodnight." Sophie leaned over and kissed Dwayne before getting out of the car.

"Do you, uh, have everything?" Dwayne asked? She knew what he meant.

"I think so, but just to make sure, do you see anything missing?" Sophie flipped up her shirt quickly, and Dwayne smiled.

"Nope, you're perfect."

"No one's perfect." She smiled and gave him another kiss.

"Close enough." Dwayne shrugged, and gave her another long kiss.

"Alright, seriously now, I really have to go now, I'm already late." She broke the kiss with another smile.

"Hey, it's not my fault."

"You mean it's not entirely your fault," she corrected him with a smile.

"Right, right." He chuckled, and she kissed him again. "Hey, I thought you had to go," Dwayne joked, and he kissed her yet again.

"I do, I'm leaving, see?" she gave him one last kiss and a smile. Then she ran up to her door, looking back to blow him one last kiss before she disappeared into her house. Dwayne pulled away from the curb, but he didn't feel like going home; instead, he decided to drive around for a bit. He wanted to think. So many important things in his life had happened in the back of that VW Bus.

It was in the back of that bus that Dwayne had first learned that Sheryl was going to get remarried to Richard. It was in the back of that same bus where Dwayne had first learned that he had a new half sister. It was in the back of that bus where he had learned that his greatest dream was impossible. It was in the back of that bus that he had learned to get along with his family again. Now, it was in the back of the bright yellow VW bus where he had lost his virginity. What confused him so much was that the bus belonged to Richard. He hated Richard, yet so many of his life's most important and significant events had occurred in the back of a car that belonged to Richard. After a lot of though, Dwayne eventually found his way back to the neighborhood, and pulled the car back into the driveway where it belonged.

"Where have you been?" Sheryl asked. She looked as though she were slightly worried, but not terribly flustered.

"I was out with Sophie, and then I drove around on my own for a little while. I'm sorry if I freaked you out, but I didn't realize how late it was." Dwayne was lying, he knew perfectly well that it was 1:30 in the morning, but he didn't much care.

"Oh, alright, it's ok, it was just getting a little late, and I didn't really know…so yeah, I'm going to go to bed now." Sheryl smiled tiredly and walked off to bed. As Dwayne headed towards his room, he noticed that Frank's light was still on. He knocked on the door, for some reason, he felt a prickly feeling inside of him, he wanted to, no, he needed to tell someone, and since he had no friends other then Sophie really, Frank would have to suffice.

"What's up?" Frank asked, letting his nephew in to his room. "Is something bothering you?" He could tell by the look in his nephew's eyes that something was up.

"I had sex with Sophie." Dwayne blurted the words out right away, he didn't know why they came out so fast, but they did.

"Ah," Frank said.

"I'm sorry to dump this off on you, but you know, I had to tell someone…" Dwayne trailed off after his explanation.

"No, seriously, don't worry about it, its fine. I'm just glad that you trusted me enough to tell me." Frank gave his nephew a small smile. "I do just have to ask you one thing." Dwayne nodded for his uncle to go ahead and ask. "Did you use protection?" Frank's smile gave way to a serious look.

"Yeah, she had…well, you know," Dwayne nodded affirmatively.

"Well, that's good."

"Yeah, it's all well and good, but the thing is, I didn't plan for it, I didn't even think about it, it just happened, I didn't have a single ounce of control over it." Dwayne gave his uncle a funny, uncomfortable sort of look.

"Well Dwayne, this might come as a surprise, but that is usually how this sort of things works," Frank said.

"Yeah, but you know me, I really, really dislike being in out of control of my own life," Dwayne shifted his position.

"Well, I'm sorry Dwayne, but I really don't know what to tell you." Frank shrugged.

"Yeah…I didn't really expect that you would have very much to say on the matter, but you know…anyway, I'm gonna go to bed." Dwayne started to turn towards his bedroom. "Oh, one more thing, please don't tell mom and Richard."

"Don't worry, as long as you keep it safe, you're secret's safe with me." Frank lay back down in bed with his book. "Just be careful, I know you know that, but it's my job to remind you; now goodnight."

"Night." Dwayne left Frank's room, and walked back to his own bedroom, where he collapsed on to his bed in his clothing and closed his eyes for a few seconds, before standing up and taking a shower.

"Dwayne?" Olive asked, knocking softly on his door. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure." Dwayne quickly shut the notebook where he was writing out a list of Pro's and Con's about what had gone down the night before between him and Sophie. "What can I do for you?" he turned to the girl once she walked inside.

"Oh, I was just wondering if you had a good time last night. Did Sophie like the picnic?" Olive had helped Dwayne pack the sandwiches and chips fresh the night before for the date.

"Oh yeah, she loved it actually, more then I thought she would have." Dwayne spoke quickly, and distractedly.

"Are you ok?" Olive noticed the sense of confusion in his voice. "You seem a little offbeat."

"No, I'm ok, or I think I am, just some stuff happened last night, and I'm not really sure how to feel about it, but I think it's gonna be alright, I just have to think on it a little bit more." Dwayne sighed. "It's one of those times where something happened that's going to change your life one way or another, but you have to decide how it's going to change it. Do you know what I mean?" Dwayne asked, Olive looked a little lost and confused.

"Not really…" Olive admitted to her confusion.

"That's ok, you'll understand when you get a little older; it's not really something that I want you to have to learn about before it's your time." Dwayne ran his fingers through Olive's smooth hair in a joking manner.

"Ok. What happened?" She was curious.

"Um, well it's kind of a personal thing, between me and Sophie you know?" Dwayne was definitely not about to tell Olive that he and Sophie had had sex, because that would have involved explaining what sex was, and none of that seemed like a good idea.

"Oh, ok. You guys didn't get in a fight again did you?" she asked, sighing.

"No, no, we're not in a fight at all, don't worry. I'm just confused; really, it's going to be fine." Dwayne smiled at her, though he wasn't so sure that he would be himself. "Did you have something that you needed to say?" he asked.

"Not really, no, I just wanted to talk, you've been hanging with Sophie for most of the weekend."

"I know, but hey, if you want to go out and grab some lunch, I'll ask Sheryl if just you and I can do that." He stood up, discreetly shoving his notebook under his pillow.

"Really?" Olive sounded excited.

"Yeah, come on." Dwayne took her hand and led her out of the room. "Mom, I'm taking Olive to get lunch, is that alright with you?" Dwayne called to Sheryl as they walked towards the front door, all ready to leave.

"Sure, just make sure she ingests something other then junk food, and DEFINITELY make sure she gets something green!" Sheryl called back to them.

"Alright, we'll be back later." Dwayne and Olive left the house, and started walking to the area of the neighborhood that held a cluster of little restaurants. Frank had the bus, so there wasn't much else they could do.

"Where are we going to eat?" she asked, looking up at him.

"I dunno, wherever I guess." Dwayne shrugged, he was indifferent. "You choose."

"Ok, I think that we should eat at Subway." Olive spoke after thinking for a minute. "That way we can get something healthy AND tasty." She smiled up at her brother, who nodded that Subway would be fine.

"So, how's Jeremy doing?" Dwayne asked as they ate their Sub sandwiches at a booth in the restaurant that was decorated to look like a map of the five boroughs of New York.

"Fine I guess," Olive shrugged. "He's a friend you know, but I still don't know a ton about him. I mean, he likes his dad, his mother left the whole family when he was really little, and his 18 year old brother hates his guts.

"Yeah, well, his 18 year old brother sounds like he could use a little fine tuning." Dwayne chuckled a little. "Jeremy seemed like a plenty nice kid, if not a little shy, but you get a lot of that at your age."

"I know, I was really surprised that he wanted to come at all; he seems so branched off from everybody else at school. I mean, he's so quiet that even the bully's don't bother to make fun of him, because he just ignores them completely."

"Does that remind you of anyone?" Dwayne asked her.

"Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of you actually. He just ignores it all when people are mean to him, but when it comes to people he cares about, he makes sure to do something about it." Olive thought for a moment, it had never occurred to her how similar Jeremy really was to her brother.

"Yeah? Well that's a good thing to look for in a guy, I'd say you've got yourself a winner. Maybe not by your father's standards, but everyone has to have their own ideas of who is a winner and who isn't." Dwayne bit into the last inch or two of his foot long turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich as Olive smiled up at him.

"I know, he's cute too." She giggled.

"Now don't you think you're a little young to start all of that?" Dwayne teased her.

"Start all of what?" Olive pretended to be completely ignorant.

"You know, all of the liking boys and stuff, you're in the third grade, I didn't start liking girls until at least seventh."

"But you're an introverted weirdo," Olive argued back.

"Now who taught you that word?" Dwayne asked, impressed that she not only pronounced correctly, and knew the word 'introverted', but that she had used it the right way.

"My teacher, it's on our extra credit spelling list." Olive smiled, glad that she had impressed Dwayne with her vocabulary.

"Yeah? What else is on there?" he asked. They spent the rest of lunch, and most of the walk home going over the words that she had already memorized from the spelling list. Dwayne was blown away; when he was that age, they had never had words like that.


	11. Chapter 11

"Sophie, I need to talk to you." Dwayne spoke seriously when she opened the front door of her house.

"Uh, ok." Sophie stepped out and closed the door behind her. She sensed that something was not right from Dwayne's tone of voice and sense of urgency. "What's wrong? Is everything alright?"

"Well, it's kind of hard to say…" Dwayne sat down on her porch steps and beckoned for her to join him. "Listen, there's something wrong with me."

"What? Are you sick or something, or is it something different?" Sophie asked, a little worried.

"No, no, it's nothing like that; it's just that I'm scared." Dwayne took a deep breath. Things didn't usually faze him whatsoever, let alone scare him.

"About what? I'm sorry, but I'm confused." Sophie responded honestly.

"Us…I'm scared about us." There, he'd said it, now he would have to explain, and that was going to be the hard part.

"How do you mean?" Sophie was still very clearly confused.

"I mean that I've never had this sort of thing. I've never really been in a relationship before, and I'm scared because I've lost control of myself now, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. Logical thinking has given its control to the way that I feel about you, and I don't like not knowing exactly what's happening with my life." Dwayne stopped talking and took a much needed breath.

"Dwayne, I-"

"No, Sophie, please let me finish." Dwayne cut Sophie off. "If I'd known you longer maybe, if things hadn't gone so fast, if Saturday night hadn't happened, things might have been different, but after everything - especially Saturday, I learned that I really didn't have any control." Dwayne finished his sentence and paused, silently telling Sophie that is was her turn to speak.

"So you're telling me that you can't handle the unknown?" Spontaneous or chance actions agitate you? Dwayne, no one can always control everything, you have to let chance and fate play in to some parts of your life. I really don't understand what you're trying to say here." Sophie looked up at him, her face still riddled with a look of confusion.

"I know, but I don't like being blind to my own emotions. What I'm trying to say is that, um, I think we need to break up…" Dwayne didn't like what he was telling her, but he knew that it was the truth.

"Dwayne, just because things got too heated in the bus Saturday, and you and I both lost control of ourselves, you think that we need to break up? I really don't understand you." Sophie didn't even bother trying to not to cry. She let the tears flow as Dwayne hurt her yet again.

"I'm sorry, I really am. I really do care about you, but think about it, a lot of things could have happened on Saturday, bad things, you could have gotten pregnant, or something."

"Dwayne, we used protection," Sophie was still crying, but she spoke to him with indignation.

"I know, but condoms aren't always effective, and if we lost control once, it could happen again, and I don't think that I could handle that."

"_You _can't handle it? What about me? I've poured so much of me in to trying to make this work, because I can't even begin to describe how you make me feel. It's not love, don't get me wrong, but we're getting there, at least I thought we were…" Sophie sniffled and began to cry a little harder.

"I think that we're getting there too. That's another part of what scares me. I feel like I'm too young to be in love, and I don't want to get to that points, and learn that I'm wrong. I've seen first hand how much falling in love before you are ready for it can hurt." Dwayne was growing tired from the energy that he was exerting trying to explain everything to Sophie. "My mom and my dad fell in love before they were ready, and the got married too early, and had me. They didn't make it, because they weren't ready for it, but they thought they were. They were wrong, they lost control, and a lot of people got hurt. I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want that to happen to us." Dwayne stopped talking and sat there, unable to say another word. As he listened to Sophie cry, his heart was hurting, but it wasn't breaking. That was exactly what he was trying to protect himself from, if he fell in love, he knew that when the relationship ended, the pain he was feeling now would be ten times worse then it already was, and he felt that an emotional over load of that magnitude might kill him.

"Listen, I'm sorry that you had a fucked up child hood, and I know that I can't fully understand, but I really wish that things weren't this way. I really like you Dwayne. I like going out with you, I like kissing you, and I even liked having sex with you, but, uh, I want you to be happy, so if you think that this is what you need, then I guess that's ok with me." Sophie sighed through her tears. She hated saying this, but it was the truth, and she couldn't deny it.

"Thank you. Really, I'm sorry that it has to be this way…" Dwayne muttered the words more to the sidewalk then to Sophie. He felt awful enough as it was, he didn't need to make things worse by looking at her, or by watching her cry; hearing the tears was bad enough.

"You should go now," Sophie said, not trusting herself to be around him right now.

"Yeah, you're probably right." Dwayne sighed and stood up. As he walked away, he chanced one glance backwards, but Sophie had already disappeared back in to her house.

"Dwayne, are you alright?" Frank could tell by Dwayne's face that something was not right from the minute he walked in the door.

"Uh, no, but I really, really don't want to talk about it right now." Dwayne shoved past his concerned Uncle and went to his room. Once he reached his room, however, he decided that it was clearly not where he wanted to be. After giving it a moment of thought, he walked to Olive's room. "Olive, can I come in?" Dwayne tapped lightly on her door.

"Yeah, sure." Olive was sitting on her bedroom floor, doing a sea life jigsaw puzzle. The five hundred pieces were scattered all around her. Dwayne sat down and silently began rummaging through the puzzle pieces, looking for corners and edges. "What's wrong?" Olive asked finally after several minutes of silently working on the puzzle.

"I broke up with Sophie," Dwayne sighed deeply.

"What? Why? I thought that you guys were doing fine, yesterday you said that you weren't in a fight." Olive sounded shocked and confused.

"We were, but I thought about it, and things were getting out of hand. I lost control of the relationship." Dwayne didn't expect Olive to understand, maybe that was why he felt so comfortable telling her about everything.

"What do you mean?" Like Dwayne had suspected, Olive didn't get it.

"I mean that I lost sight of everything else besides my relationship with Sophie. I no longer had control over my feelings, which led to a loss of control over my actions as well," Dwayne explained what he could without telling Olive more then he should.

"Oh." Olive didn't really understand, but she didn't feel like prying into his life further then he offered. "I'm really, really sorry." Olive gave Dwayne a comforting pat on his shoulder.

"Yeah, well, it was definitely for the best. After all, I initiated the break up, I just don't like hurting her at all, it makes me feel awful."

"Then why did you do it?" Olive asked the question that had been on Dwayne's mind.

"I don't know, other then the reason that I already gave you." Dwayne sighed again, and shrugged. "It just seemed right, but in a way, now that it's done, it doesn't feel right; at least it feels different then I had expected it to."

"I'm sorry, but I really don't know what to say."

"I know." Dwayne fitted two pieces of the puzzle together, and shoved them in to another group of connected pieces to complete the formation of an over sized starfish. There was a silence, but not an awkward silence, this was a comforting silence, the silence of a brother and sister working intently towards a common goal. This was the silence of two people bonding over a puzzle. "I think you might be missing a piece." Dwayne had been searching for the sea tortoise's head for several minutes now, and was beginning to get annoyed.

"No, I just opened it. Just look around a little more, it has to be around here somewhere," Olive told him nicely.

"That's what I've been doing, I'm telling you, the fucking piece isn't here!" Dwayne was getting angry, but at himself and the puzzle, not at Olive.

"Dwayne please, calm down. It's right here! Geez." Olive had found Dwayne's so called missing piece, and handed it to him.

"Oh…" He took the piece from her and used it to complete the sea tortoise. He felt guilty for swearing and raising his voice at her. "Thanks."

"No problem, just try to calm down, it's just a puzzle." Olive giggled a little.

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm just stressed out."

"Are you sure that you made the right decision? Breaking up with Sophie, I mean." Olive asked.

"No, I'm not sure. I thought that I was, and I'm still pretty sure that it was the best choice, but I'm not one hundred percent positive, no." Dwayne shifted from his sitting position to lying, his stomach down on the ground, his head angled up so that he could see the puzzle.

"Maybe you should call her?" Olive suggested.

"No, I'm standing by both my decisions and my actions – I don't need to screw around with her emotions – or mine for that matter, and more then I already have."

"Alright, I guess that's up to you…" Olive took the last three puzzle pieces in her hand and put one in its place on the Orca whale's black and white stomach. She handed one of the two remaining pieces to her brother, and kept one for herself. Dwayne connected his piece to the bright green sea anemone, finishing it off, while Olive connected the piece that she was holding to the kelp that was floating up and out of the picture. Once she finished pressing it down, they both looked down at the now completed puzzle together. When they looked down at their finish product, they shared a small smile, a smile that told Dwayne that everything was going to be ok, and a smile that told Olive that she could help him make things better in his life.

_**A/N I know that this is shorter then the other chapters, but I felt that it was important to end the chapter with Olive and Dwayne bonding, so sue me. I also know that this story is a little weird, but for some reason, I like it, even though most people prefer my other ones. Well, I hope that you enjoy!**_


	12. Chapter 12

Dwayne trudged around the rest of Monday night, after completing the puzzle with Olive. Sheryl was worried about him, but Richard advised her to leave him alone, he told her that when he was ready, Dwayne would go and talk to her, and that she shouldn't trouble herself with it before he was ready to talk to her. This being as it was, Sheryl just watched as her son slumped around the house, acting tired and grumpy, a mood which he seemed to be reverting too less since Sophie had come in to his life, but still more then she would have liked to see. Frank left him alone as well, as Dwayne had told him earlier that he didn't want to talk about it. Olive was the only one who had any insight whatsoever as to what Dwayne was feeling, or even as to what was wrong with him, but she wasn't about to tell. He had told her that it was his personal business, and she was going to keep that in confidence, no matter what.

The family sat down to a late dinner of, surprise, surprise, fried chicken, corn, salad, and mashed potatoes. This was a meal that they had been eating less and less lately, but it was still found once or twice a week on their table. The first few minutes of the meal was a chaotic clustering of noises, people eating, people passing food around, there was some talking as well, but as the meal continued, Dwayne's quiet and sullen mood sucked everyone else up into a state of uneasy silence. Everyone started to feel that the quicker they ate, the faster the awkwardness of the five person silence would end. Richard was the first one done, but he waited for the rest of the family to finish. Dwayne was second, and the minute he was done, he got up and went to his room without excusing himself. Richard began to protest, to tell Dwayne that he should be polite and finish out the meal with the family, but looks shot at him by Olive, Sheryl, and Frank told him that he should let the boy go.

"Mom," Olive said as they cleaned up the kitchen together. It was Dwayne's night to help, but Olive volunteered to go for him because he didn't really seem to be in any mood to do dishes. "If someone does something and it hurts both themselves and another person, but it feels like the right thing to do, then is it ok, or not?"

"I don't know, it depends on the situation I guess," Sheryl answered. "Why honey? Did you do something like that?"

"No, not me, a friend of mine." Olive thought for a moment. "I have this friend, and let's say she started fighting a lot with another friend, and they got in to a fist fight the other day, and she told her friend that she thought it was maybe a good idea if they stopped hanging out together so much, even though she still wanted to be friends, she didn't want to physically get hurt, or hurt her friend, so she emotionally hurt them both. Did she do the right thing?" Olive was fairly proud of herself for making up the situation.

"Oh, that's a tough one," Sheryl said, thinking for a minute. "It probably would have been better if they talked through there problems, you know, if they figured out why they were arguing so much, and then from there they should have tried to see if they could fix it or not." Sheryl set the salad bowl that she was washing down on the wrack for Olive to dry. "Are you sure it's not you?" she asked.

"Yeah mom, I'm sure, jeez, I told you, it's a friend of mine." Olive started to dry the salad bowl with her dish towel.

"Ok, well it was nice of you to ask for your friend." Sheryl smiled at Olive, and Olive could tell that Sheryl didn't believe that Olive wasn't talking about herself. She didn't mind though, because she knew in her heart that she was getting advice for Dwayne, not herself.

"Mom, can I be done?" Olive asked after she finished drying the salad bowl.

"Yeah, sure, I guess you've done enough, especially since it wasn't your turn to do the dishes tonight." Sheryl let Olive go before all of the dishes were finished.

"Thanks mom." Olive walked directly towards Dwayne's room, where she knew he would be, and found him sitting on his floor, staring up at the ceiling. "Dwayne?" she asked. He looked up at her with a start, he hadn't noticed her enter; he was too deep in thought.

"Yeah?" he asked, moving around so that he was facing her.

"Well, I was thinking, and maybe you should try talking to Sophie, maybe you should figure out why you lost control, and maybe how you could get it back?" Olive suggested, walking over and sitting on the floor next to her brother.

"The thing with that is there's no way to have control. When you're in a relationship with someone that you really care about, you get blind sighted by your feelings; there's nothing that you can do about it, once you're gone, you're gone. The only thing that matters after that is the other person, what do they need? What will make them happy? How can I show this person how much I care? When will I get to see them again? How long do I have to wait until I can kiss them again, or hold them? It's all that you can think about anymore." Dwayne sighed, he didn't know why he was telling this to Olive, she would be seeing a side of him now that she hadn't really seen before, a side that showed how much of a romantic he could be, and he wasn't sure that he wanted her to see that.

"Oh, so you lose control, and you can't ever get it back? Even if not having control means that you can't be with that person anymore?" Olive asked. Dwayne nodded.

"You see, some people can handle the lack of control, but I'm not one of those people, I always have to be in control of my feelings, because they are the one thing in life that have the power to scare me if they get screwed with, does that make sense to you?" Dwayne asked, not sure if Olive knew anything about what he was trying to say.

"Yeah, it does actually; it makes a lot of sense." She nodded, and gave him a small hug, which was a little difficult to do considering that he was sitting leaned up against his bed. "Do you want me to leave you alone?" she asked after a minute.

"I think probably that's a good idea, I sort of need to think. It's not that I don't want you around, it's just that I need some time to myself right now." Dwayne nodded, and Olive stood up.

"Alright, let me know if you want to talk or play a game or something," she said as she turned and left the room, shutting the door behind her so that he could slide back into the solitude of thought.

"Dwayne, wait." Sophie ran up behind Dwayne at school two days morning. He kept walking; he didn't trust himself to be around her. They were over, and that is how he had wanted it. "Dwayne, seriously, she caught up to him and pulled his arm, forcing him to face her. "I can't take this."

"What, can't take what?" Dwayne was confused.

"I have to know, did you really break up with me because you're afraid of falling in love, or do you really not want to be with me anymore for some other reason?"

"I told you, I'm-"

"I know what you told me, but all of last night and the night before I found myself lying awake, wondering if it was me, if there was something that I did wrong."

"No, it wasn't you, I promise, everything that I told you two days ago was the truth."

"So this isn't hurting you like its hurting me? Be honest, please." Sophie stared into Dwayne's brown eyes; he knew that he couldn't lie to her.

"It is," he answered finally. They shared a silence for a minute, ignoring the noise and the people that were milling around them in the crowded school hallway, trying to get to class.

"So you're not satisfied with the decision that you made?"

"No, I don't, but I still can't help thinking that it was the right one to make." Dwayne shifted his stance around uneasily and broke his eye contact with Sophie.

"What if you're wrong? What if you made a mistake? You might have made a mistake…"

"I know, but I'm not sure that it's worth the risk of finding out."

"Don't you think that's a little on the lazy side? When something confuses you, you can't always run away, you can't always pretend that it's not there." Sophie spoke harshly, biting in to him with her words.

"Yes, I do think that it's lazy of me, but…" Dwayne whispered his answer after thinking for a bit, but didn't finish his sentence, he wasn't sure how to.

"So you're not afraid to fight the school iron man, but you're afraid of being confused about your emotions and actions?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much the way that I work." Dwayne didn't know how else to respond to Sophie's rightful accusation.

"So never in your life have you wanted to change that about yourself?" she asked, biting her lower lip gently as she spoke.

"I have…I just don't think that I can, not yet at least." Dwayne sighed, she knew him better then he had thought she did.

"You're sure about that?"

"Right now I'm not too sure about anything."

"Fine, you know what? This was a waste of time." Sophie turned angrily, and began to walk away. Dwayne was frozen still, standing, watching as she walked away. He was surprised, however, to see her turn back, and though she still looked upset, return to him. Dwayne prepared himself for a slap, verbal or physical.

"Sophie-" Dwayne started, but was cut off by her grabbing him and kissing him. Many fellow students stopped in their tracks, watching the unlikely couple. Dwayne was surprised to find himself kissing her back, but he was even more surprised to find himself not caring who else saw. All of his previous attempts to regain control over his life and emotions melted away. Sophie and Dwayne heard that catcalls that were emitted from their classmates as they escalated the kiss to tongue, but neither seemed to care. "You know, maybe it is time for a change…" Dwayne said, breaking the kiss.

"Are you sure?" Sophie asked him yet again, this time, a smile not quite daring to cross her face.

"No, I'm really not, but that's part of the risk I guess." Dwayne gave her a small smile.

"Yeah, well you never really are sure…" She twisted her face in to a confused, but serious look.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I'm not sure about a lot of things, I'm not really sure of much of anything at all actually." Dwayne shifted again; he had suddenly became aware of all of the people that were standing there watching them. Their attention had been grabbed by the kiss, and now the audience was hooked, the drama was keeping them on their toes, they wanted to know what was going to happen.

"I know, I know. I just don't want you to be unsure of whether or not you want to be with me, it's more of a 'you do or you don't' thing. I want to be with you, that's my decision."

"I know you do, and I want to be with you too – I just don't want to get hurt badly, or hurt you, and I'm worried that I will."

"You know, the way I see it, you don't really care about someone unless you're willing to get hurt because of them." Sophie tilted her head and looked at Dwayne.

"I've heard that before, and it's probably true, but I don't like it, it's almost like committing some sort of emotional suicide. It just doesn't seem right that life should be like this."

"It's hard, but that's life, I mean, are you ok with that or not?" Sophie's speaking was interrupted by the bell, telling them to go to class. She turned to go to class, but this time it was Dwayne stopping her.

"I want to try. I really do. I think I can handle the risk," he said, taking a deep breath.

"Good." Sophie gave him a quick kiss and headed towards her class. Dwayne was still rooted to the spot, too surprised by his own actions and words to move. He had finally taken a risk for something that he cared about, and he felt already that it was going to pay off. Nothing could tell him what lay in store for him and Sophie, but for the first time, that didn't matter to him, all that mattered was how things with Sophie were at the moment, and at the moment, they were good, just the way he wanted them to be, and his life was just the way that he wanted it to be.


	13. Epilogue

Dwayne and Sophie made a better couple then anyone would have ever guessed. They made it al through the rest of high school, and through graduation. They even chose to go to the same college so that they could be together, however, they didn't make it all the way through college together. Nothing big happened, there was no big fight, they just stopped loving each other the way they used to, and both were ok with it when they broke up, but neither of them ever totally let go either. For Dwayne, it was a first love, and one that would be with him forever, no matter what happened. They didn't lost contact completely, but they reduced their relationship slowly over the years to the point where al they heard from each other was a generic Christmas card, or a mass email sent out to everyone on the buddy list in the case of big events. Frank had told Dwayne over the phone when the relationship had all ended that you couldn't always have your first love forever, and Dwayne took his words to heart.

As for Olive, she had her share of drama when Jeremy announced later that year that he and his family had to move. When they did, she saw them off at the airport. It was the last time that she would see him until her senior year of high school, when he and his father moved back to Albuquerque. Though Jeremy and Olive both looked completely different, they immediately recognized each other, and were pulled by an attraction that neither of them would have predicted, directly towards each other. They started going out only one day after his return, and unlike Dwayne and Sophie, they made it through college together. They were married just after they graduated from college, in their home town of Albuquerque, New Mexico. With the help of Dwayne, Jeremy and Olive had managed to locate Jeremy's mother, and she attended the wedding along with Jeremy's brother and father. Frank, Richard, and Sheryl all came as well, and Dwayne served as Jeremy's best man. Sophie was the maid of honor, and that was the last time that Dwayne and Sophie would ever see each other, but somehow, the wedding gave them both the closure that they needed to begin the rest of their lives.

THE END


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